PLANTS USEFUL IN AGRICULTUE.


OBSERVATIONS ON THE CULTURE OF GRASSES, AND ON SAVING SEEDS, &c.


It is now fifty years since the celebrated Stillingfleet observed, "that
it was surprising to see how long mankind had neglected to make a proper
advantage of plants, of so much importance to agriculture as the
Grasses, which are in all countries the principal food of cattle." The
farmer, for want of distinguishing and selecting the best kinds, fills
his pastures either with weeds or improper plants, when by making a
right choice he would not only procure a more abundant crop from his
land, but have a produce more nourishing for his flock. One would
therefore naturally wonder, after this truth has been so long published,
and that in an age when agriculture and the arts have so much improved,
that Select Seeds of this tribe of plants are scarcely to be produced.

From the experience I have had on this subject, I find their culture is
attended with certain difficulties, which arise not so much from the
nature of the plants, as from the labour requisite to this purpose,
great attention being necessary for saving Grass-seeds at the seasons
when the farmer must exert all the strength of his husbandmen to get his
other business accomplished.

The only mode by which this can be effected is by selecting a proper
soil for the kinds intended to be saved. The seeds should be drilled