extremely absurd it is to endeavour to form clean and good
pasturage under a crop hat gives as much protection to every noxious
weed as to the young grass itself. Weeds are of two descriptions, and
each requires a very different mode of extermination: thus, if annual,
as the Charlock and Poppy, they will flower among the corn, and the
seeds will ripen and drop before harvest, and be ready to vegetate as
soon as the corn is removed; and if perennial, as Thistles, Docks,
Couch-grass, and a long tribe of others in this way, well known to the
farmer, they will be found to take such firm possession of the ground
that they will not be got rid of without great trouble and expense.

"Although the crop of corn thus obtained is valuable, yet when a good
and permanent meadow is wanted, and when all the strength of the land is
required to nurture the young grass thus robbed and injured, the
proprietor is often at considerable expense the second year for manure,
which, taking into consideration the trouble and disadvantage attending
it, more than counterbalances the profit of the corn crop.

"To accomplish fully the formation of permanent meadows, three things
are necessary: namely to clean the land, to produce good and perfect
seeds adapted to the nature of the soil, and to keep the crop clean by
eradicating all the weeds, till the grasses have grown sufficiently to
prevent the introduction of other plants. The first of these matters is
known to every good farmer,--the second may be obtained,--and the third
may be accomplished by practising the modes in which I have succeeded at
a small comparative expense and trouble, and which is instanced in a
meadow immediately fronting Brompton Crescent, the property of Angus
Macdonald, Esq. which land was very greatly encumbered with noxious
weeds of all kinds: but, by the following plan, the grasses were
encouraged to grow up to the exclusion of all other plants; and though
it has been laid down more than ten years, the pasturage is now at least
equal to any in the county.

"Grass seeds may be sown with equal advantage both in spring and autumn.
The land above mentioned was sown in the latter end of August, and the
seed made use of was one bushel of Meadow-fescue, and one of Meadow
fox-tail-grass, with a mixture of fifteen pounds of white Clover and
Trefoil per acre; the land was previously cleaned as far as possible
with the plough and harrows, and the seeds sown and covered in the usual