Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. I have dedicated this book to my late really-to-be-lamented friend, Mr. Faunce De Laune of Sharsted Court, Kent, because I, in common with a vast number of landowners and farmers, owe him a great deal of gratitude for having, in his article On Laying Down Land to Permanent Pasture, been the means of calling attention to the once deplorable condition of the British seed trade. This is sufficiently exemplified by a single quotation from the article alluded to, and in which Mr. De Laune says: - I found that, however careful I was in my orders, and from whatever seed merchant I ordered my seed, the per centage of ryegrass, soft, woolly grass, and other bad grasses and weeds, was beyond all belief.