Some comments on that paper, and on the subject
generally, by Mr. Davis, of Longleat, will be found in the second
volume of the Beauties of Wiltshire, p. 79. That gentleman states that
"its extraordinary length is produced by the overflowing of the river
on a warm gravelly bed, which disposes the grass to take root and
shoot out from the joints, and then root again, and thus again and
again; so that it is frequently of the length of ten or twelve feet
and the quantity on the land immense, although it does not stand above
two feet high from the ground". Although the meadow at Orcheston St.
Mary in which this grass grows is only two acres and a half in extent,
its produce in a favourable season, is said to have exceeded twelve
tons of hay. Shakspere, to whom all natural and rural objects were
familiar, alludes to the "hindering knot-grass", in A Midsummer
Night's Dream, Act iii. sc. 2.
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Ramsons (allium ursinum, fl. albo): tast like garlick: they grow much
in Cranbourn Chace. A proverb: -
"Eate leekes in Lide,* and ramsins in May,
And all the yeare after physitians may play".
* March.
[I have seen this old proverb printed, "Eat leekes in Lent, and
raisins in May, &c." - J. B.]
No wild oates in Wiltshire, or rarely. In Somersetshire, common.
(There is abundance of wild oats in the middle part of Wiltsh.,
especially in the west clay of Market Lavington field, when the crop
is barley.
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