A prudent man who is not a perfect judge himself of the matter, will first consider the quality and nature of his land before he sows grass seeds, and then consult Lawson’s Tables, which furnish precise information on every particular as to the quality and quantity of seeds for all soils, and whether for one, two, three years, or for permanent pasture, and he will endeavour to obtain what he wants accordingly; not that this is often an easy matter of accomplishment, for few seedsmen have the varieties sufficiently distinct, although they are generally polite enough to say that they have them so.
But how can they be always sure of this? We know the great difficulty, even in botanical gardens, of keeping the kinds separate, and the rapidity with which grass seeds become commingled. The only certain way is to raise the desired seeds in detached portions of land, perfectly clean, and carefully cleared of intruding plants. Can the seedsman, with the most honourable intentions and greatest caution, be himself secure from the effects of negligence or wilful imposition?
But to return to the case of the poor man who thinks he has a bargain when he buys four bushels of bad grass seeds for half-a-crown. Though he sees the bad effects in the inferiority of his herbage, and at first lays the blame on the proper source, he actually persuades himself afterwards (when He, who in his bounty doth “clothe the grass of the field” throughout the whole earth, has covered the surface of his field with natural herbage) that to the seeds which he had sown two or three years previously, he is mainly to attribute what the prodigality of Nature, or, more properly, the munificence of God, has supplied.
The man who sows bad or ill-suited grass seeds, merely because he has obtained them, and is unwilling to lose the acquisition, reminds me of an old lady who was for many years of her life in the habit of giving annually (in the spring of the year) to her grandchildren, a regular course of sulphur and treacle mixed up together, whether the recipients required it or not.
On one occasion, a new servant maid, unacquainted with this system, was sent for the usual quantity of flour of sulphur, but by some mismanagement she brought home a pound of flour of mustard. Her mistress sent her back to the grocer from whom it had been bought, but from previous jealousies or quarrels unnecessary to detail, he refused to take it back again. The poor maid could not herself be expected to substitute the required sulphur, and the old lady was determined that the mustard should not be lost. She accordingly mixed it with the treacle instead of the other substance, and actually ladled every particle of the compound down the throats of her grandchildren and the servant maid, who consented to take her share as a punishment for her inattention, until the whole mixture was consumed. The old lady was less foolish than the farmer who sows the seeds of weeds, because she had previously ascertained that the flour of mustard was harmless; but the husbandman must know that those seeds which are not genuine grass seeds are noxious to his land, by rendering it foul, and it is therefore extravagance and not economy on his part to use bad seeds, merely to save waste.
I am sorry to say that the same indifference prevails among the lower classes of our farmers as to seed in general. On this subject I shall again occupy a page of the Journal in an early number.
A Lazy Dog.—Dr Arnaud d’Antilli, one day talking with the Duke de Laincourt upon the new philosophy of M. Descartes, maintained that beasts were mere machines; that they had no sort of reason to direct them; and that when they cried or made a noise, it was only one of the wheels of the clock or machine that made it. The Duke, who was of a different opinion, replied, “I have now in my kitchen two turnspits which take their turns regularly every other day to get into the wheel; one of them not liking his employment, hid himself on the day he should have wrought, so that his companion was forced to mount the wheel in his stead; when released, by crying and wagging his tail, he made a sign for those in attendance to follow him. He immediately conducted them to a garret, where he dislodged the idle dog and bit him severely.”—Dublin University Magazine.
CURIOUS COINCIDENCES.
One of the most fruitful sources of superstition, and that which has been most productive of what are styled “well-founded and authenticated stories of supernatural occurrences,” is that Protean monster known in all its forms by the general appellation of “Remarkable or Curious Coincidences.”
The frequent occurrence of events precisely similar in their details, though perfectly simple and ordinary individually, is apt to be considered, first, as remarkable, and, if again repeated, wonderful.