One would
therefore naturally wonder, after this truth has been so long published,
and that in an age when agriculture and the arts have so much improved,
that Select Seeds of this tribe of plants are scarcely to be produced.
From the experience I have had on this subject, I find their culture is
attended with certain difficulties, which arise not so much from the
nature of the plants, as from the labour requisite to this purpose,
great attention being necessary for saving Grass-seeds at the seasons
when the farmer must exert all the strength of his husbandmen to get his
other business accomplished.
The only mode by which this can be effected is by selecting a proper
soil for the kinds intended to be saved. The seeds should be drilled
into the ground at about one foot distance; and care taken that the
plants are duly weeded of all other kinds that may intrude themselves,
before they get too firm possession of the soil. The hoe should be
frequently passed between the drills, in order both to keep the land
clean and to give vigour to the young plants. The sowing may be done
either in the spring or in the month of September, which will enable the
crop to go to seed the following spring. In order to preserve a
succession of crops, it is necessary every season to keep the ground
clean all the summer months, to dig or otherwise turn up the land
between the drills early in the spring, and to be particular in the
other operations until the seeds ripen.
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