The Rothamsted Grass Experiments ¹

Abstract

THERE is at Rothamsted nothing which will more impress the visitor than the seven acres of meadow land in the Park, the many years' experiments upon which with different manures constitute the subject of the above-named memoir. The twenty parallel plots into which the area is divided appeal at once and forcibly to the eye by the obvious differences in their herbage. A plot here with rich green grasses waving luxuriantly upon it; another, on which the yellow meadow vetchling apparently constitutes the leading feature; a third, irregular, patchy, and much afflicted with the sorrel-dock; and yet another, on which, at the time of our visit (August), the white-flowered umbels of the earth-nut put everything else in the shade,—these and the like appearances convince with an eloquence which the pen is powerless to imitate.