an acre; and it is sometimes met with in our seed-shops. It will grow in
any soil, but thrives best in a moist loam.



26. HOLCUS mollis. CREEPING SOFT-GRASS.--Mr. Curtis in the third edition
of his Treatise on Grasses says, he is induced to have a better opinion
than formerly of this grass, and that Mr. Dorset also thinks it may be
cultivated to advantage in dry sandy soils. I have never seen it exhibit
any appearance that has indicated any such thing, and do not recommend
it.



27. HORDEUM pratense. MEADOW BARLEY-GRASS.--This is productive, and
forms a good bottom in Battersea meadows: but although I have heard it
highly recommended, I should fear it was much inferior to many others.
One species of Barley-grass, which grows very commonly in our
sea-marshes, the Hordeum maritimum, is apt to render cattle diseased in
the mouth, from chewing the seeds, which are armed with a strong bristly
awn not dissimilar to the spike of this grass.



28. LOLIUM perenne. RAY- or RYE-GRASS.--This has been long in
cultivation, and is usually sown with clover under a crop of spring
corn. It forms in the succeeding autumn a good stock of herbage, and the
summer following it is commonly mown for hay, or the seed saved for
market, after which the land is usually ploughed and fallowed, to clear
it of weeds, or as a preparation for Wheat, by sowing a crop of Winter