e useless. Persons should be cautious how they speculate with weeds
from appearances only.

12. BRIZA media. QUAKING-GRASS.--Is common in meadow land, and helps to
make a thick bottom; it does not however appear to be worth the trouble
of select culture. It is bitter to the taste.

13. BROMUS mollis. SOFT BROME-GRASS.--Mr. Curtis has given a very clear
account of this grass, which he says predominates much in the meadows
near London, but that the seeds are usually ripe and the grass dried up
before the hay time: hence it is lost; and he in consequence considered
it only in the light of a weed. It has seldom occurred to me to differ
in opinion from this gentleman, who certainly has given us, as far as it
goes, a most perfect description of our useful grasses: but experience
has convinced me that the Soft Brome-Grass, which seeds and springs up
so early, makes the chief bulk of most of our meadows in March and
April; and although it is ripe and over, or nearly so, by the hay
harvest, yet the food it yields at this early season is of the greatest
moment, as little else is found fit for the food of cattle before the
meadow is shut up for hay, and this plant being eaten down at that
season is not any loss to the hay crop. Whoever examines the seeds of
this grass will be led to admire how wonderfully it is fitted to make
its way into the soil at the season of its ripening, when the land is
thus covered with the whole produce of a meadow. I notice this curious
piece of mechanism [Footnote: Many seeds of the grasses are provided with
awns which curl up in dry weather and relax with moisture. Thus by
change of atmosphere a continued motion is occasioned, which enables the
seeds to find their way through the foliage to the soil, where it buries
itself in a short time in a very curious manner.], not that it is
altogether peculiar to this plant, but to show that Nature has provided
it means of succeeding in burying itself in the ground, when all the
endeavours of man could not sow the land with any other to answer a
similar purpose. If the seeds of this grass were collected and
introduced in some meadows where it is not common, I am sure the early
feeding would be thereby improved.

The seeds are sometimes mixed with those of Rye-grass at market, and it
is known by the name of Cocks: it has the effect of reducing such
samples in value, but I should not hesitate in preferring such to any
other. If any one should be incline