CHAPTER XI.
ON MEADOW PLANTS OTHER THAN GRASSES.
With the grass of the field will usually be found a large proportion of plants of a very varied, variable, and different kind. Of these, many are useful as augmenting the mass, and even improving the quality of a pasture; whilst, as others are altogether objectionable, we shall presently notice them under the head of “Meadow Weeds.”
Of the more useful adjuncts of the meadow we may tabulate the following:—
| No. | Trivial Names. | Botanical Names. |
| 1 | Red clover | Trifolium pratense. |
| 2 | Zigzag clover | „ medium. |
| 3 | White or Dutch clover | „ repens. |
| 4 | Birdsfoot | Lotus corniculatus. |
| 5 | Yellow vetchling | Lathyrus pratensis. |
| 6 | Purple vetchling | „palustris. |
| 7 | Saintfoin | Onobrychis sativa. |
| 8 | Burnet | Sanguisorba officinalis. |
| 9 | False burnet | Poterium Sanguisorba. |
| 10 | Tormentil | Tormentilla officinalis. |
| 11 | Yarrow | Achillæa millefolia. |
| 12 | Agrimony | Agrimonia Eupatoria. |
| 13 | Plantain | Plantago lanceolata. |
| Some of the smaller Compositæ. | ||
| DittoUmbelliferæ. | ||
Of these, which are arranged pretty nearly in their order of merit, the clovers are by far the most important. These, as meadow plants, will usually be found under the following circumstances:—
No. 1. Plentiful in good, rich, sound meadows.
„2. Frequent in meadows on light sandy soils.
„3. On thin but good soil, upland meadows.
The clovers, and indeed the clover allies, Papilionaceæ, as a whole, are partial to lime,—so much so, that a dressing of this mineral to some fields in which clovers are scarcely represented will very quickly cause an accelerated growth of them; hence road dirt, when made from calcareous stones, as are the oolitic and mountain limestones, affords a good vehicle for the admixture of manures or ameliorators, such as guano, burnt ashes, soot, nitrate of soda, &c.