This it is impossible to enjoy in Portugal
where it would be as practicable to cover the general surface with the
snow of Lapland as with the verdure of England." It is much the same in
France. "There is everywhere in France," says Loudon, "a want _of close
green turf_, of ever-green bushes and of good adhesive gravel." Some
French admirers of English gardens do their best to imitate our lawns,
and it is said that they sometimes partially succeed with English grass
seed, rich manure, and constant irrigation. In Bengal there is a very
beautiful species of grass called Doob grass, (_Panicum Dactylon_,) but
it only flourishes on wide and exposed plains with few trees on them,
and on the sides of public roads, Shakespeare makes Falstaff say that
"the camomile the more it is trodden on the faster it grows" and, this
is the case with the Doob grass. The attempt to produce a permanent Doob
grass lawn is quite idle unless the ground is extensive and open, and
much trodden by men or sheep. A friend of mine tells me that he covered
a large lawn of the coarse Ooloo grass (_Saccharum cylindricum_) with
mats, which soon killed it, and on removing the mats, the finest Doob
grass sprang up in its place. But the Ooloo grass soon again over-grew
the Doob.
[004] I allude here chiefly to the ryots of wealthy Zemindars and to
other poor Hindu people in the service of their own countrymen.
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