Grass Tourists . A group of Americans,. all distinguished in
their subject, and some two hUndied persons, repreieriting 37 different nations, are at the moment touring England 'chiefly to -study its grasses. These two groups of our visitors are not 'in any way 'connected ; but they have a common interest in the chief herb of this 'country, whether it is in the form of the lateit variety of coCksfoot, which they saw by Hereford, or of crested dogstail and brumus erectus which they examined on the old Ridgeway and the Fair Mile in Berkshire, or the fescues in Lord Astor's beautiful paddocks above the Thames. The American visitors are perhaps chiefly interested in grass and green crops as a method of preventing soil erosion and exhaustion. The collapse of fertility on 'American acres is a calamity that can scarcely be exaggerated. It amounts to a national disaster. Farmers, for years, have been taking all they could out of the soil and when it failed moving on to another farm. Today the reserve supply is exhausted and the old farming has left a desert behind it. The restoration of the fertility of the soil is the most urgent of all the national problems ; and English experience can help. In our closely cultivated island we exhausted the natural superfluity of wealth in the soil hundreds of years ago and have found out how to restore it.
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