THE GRASSES AND THEIR CULTURE.*

BY HON. JOHN STANTON GOULD.

A very brief glance at the vegetable kingdom will convince us of the vast importance of the grasses to the whole family of man; a more minute and careful survey of this great field of observation will make us wonder that the agricultural world has been content for so many generations to remain in so much ignorance of their nature and properties as we know they have always been.

We all, without exception, derive a great deal of pleasure from contemplating the beauty of the grass; "a thing of beauty," it "is a joy forever;" it exhilarates alike the prince and the peasant, the poet and the philosopher, the merchant and the mechanic, and cheers and gladdens all classes and conditions of men. Destroy the rich meadows and pastures of our farms, and how much of the pleasure as well as of the profit of a farmers life would be blasted. Remove the little. green grass plat from the contracted yard of the citizen, and how much would the enjoyment of his domestic life be narrowed. When the prophet Isaiah would express the very extremity of desolation, he exclaimed: "The grass faileth; there is no green thing."

While the grasses are adapted to gratify the vision of all classes of mankind, their greatest charms are reserved for those who study them most lovingly and persistently, and observe with careful scrutiny all the minute details of their organization. These alone can appreciate the exquisite grace and harmony of their forms and motions, and the wonderful adaptation of their structure to the exigencies of their positions, and to the welfare of man. These alone can descry the marvelous uniformity of their plan, exhibited in the widest diversity of structure, which attests the touch of the divine finger in their organization, compelling them reverently to adopt the grateful exclamation of the psalmist: "Oh, Lord, how manifold are thy works; in wisdom hast thou made them all; the whole earth is full of thy riches."

The latest and most certain conclusions of science coincide with the

Apostle's statement that "all flesh is grass;" they demonstrate most

*Copyright secured to the Author.

conclusively that in thus saying, he yields to no mere poetic fancy, but gives utterance to a sober and unvarnished fact. The elegant contour of the human form, the ear that drinks in the melody of song, the tongue that communicates the utterances of the soul, the sparkling eye, the ruby lip, and every portion of our material frame, owes its origin, either mediately or immediately, to the grasses of the field. It is their appointed function to gather and combine the scattered elements of inorganic matter in such proportions and in such forms as are best calculated to build up all the tissues which are essential for the manifestations of animal life. They extract saline ingredients from the rocks, hydrogen and oxygen from the rains and dews, carbon and nitrogen from the soil and the atmosphere, and mingling these together by a subtle and mysterious chemistry which man can never imitate, they lay these treasures at his feet in a form exactly fitted for his purposes. Very precious, therefore, is this promise of the Almighty, "I will send grass into thy field for thy cattle that thou mayest eat and be full.”

WIDE DIFFUSION OF THE GRASSES.

While the grape, the fig, the orange, the bread-fruit tree, the vine, and most of the other productions of the vegetable kingdom are restricted to narrow belts of latitude, the grasses flourish in every region of the earth. They spring up spontaneously on the plain, on the mountain, and in the valleys by the water courses; they unfold their graceful panicles beneath the dull and leaden skies of the arctic region, they adorn the temperate zones with their refreshing verdure, while beneath the ardent skies of torrid climes their culms swell out into almost gigantic proportions, vieing in some of their varieties with the trees of more northern regions. Their leaves and culms furnish food for cattle, the seeds of inferior species furnish food for birds, while those of superior species furnish nutriment for man himself.

The importance of the grasses is shown in the relation which they bear numerically to the total vegetation of the earth. At least onesixth of the plants that grow upon our planet belong to this family. Two hundred and thirty genera, embracing 3,000 distinct species of grass are known to botanists, and new genera and species are constantly revealed to us by the reports of travelers and the researches of domestic observers.

Two hundred and fifteen distinct species of grass are capable of being cultivated in Great Britain, and 133 species are proved to be indigenous in that island.

Mr. Flint describes 125 varieties of grass as growing in the State of Massachusetts. Prof. Torrey, in the Natural History of New York, describes forty varieties of the genus Poa, twenty-seven of the genus Agrostis, and a total for the State of 125 varieties.

This wide diffusion of the grasses is due, in some degree, to the care which nature takes for their production and protection. The seeds of some varieties are provided with hooks by which they attach themselves to the hair and wool of grazing animals, and to the clothes of men, by which they are transported to regions widely remote from their origin. Their seeds, which form the favorite food of many birds, are retained in their stomachs and carried many hundreds of miles before they are voided; they then germinate under favorable circumstances, and thus the grasses of widely remote regions are interchanged. The seeds are very light and highly polished, which fits them for diffusion through wide areas by the combined agencies of the winds of winter and the frozen snows. Many of them are furnished with rhizomes or creeping roots, which send forth many shoots, and rapidly cover the ground where a single stem has once effected a lodgment. The annual decay of the stems affords a constant supply of food for the successive growths of the plant.

Nature has also provided for their protection after their first establishment in various ways. A large proportion of the species are perennials; they are uninjured by the cropping and the laceration of their herbage, which is soon replaced by the internal energies of the plant; on the contrary, this very laceration which would utterly destroy many families of plants, is really necessary for the most vigorous growth of many species of grass, and is essential to their continuance on the same area. The creeping roots, though bruised and torn by the heavy tread of cattle, are not injured by it, and the winter's cold and the summer's heat are alike unable to extinguish the principle of life within them.

ECONOMICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE GRASSES.

We shall not greatly err if we assume that the present annual production of hay in the United States is 25,000,000 of tons, which, at ten dollars a ton, amounts to the enormous sum of $250,000,000. We have no means of ascertaining with precision what are the proportional areas of the pastures and meadows of the United States. We know that in the State of New York the proportion is as 1.35 acres of pasture to one acre of meadow; and the total area of improved land is to the total area of grass land as 1.46 to [AG.j

25

one.

This proportion of pasture to meadow will hold good for the eastern and middle States; but in the western and southern States the proportion would be at least six acres of pasture to one of meadow. We shall, therefore, not be liable to overrate the area of pasture in the United States, if we assume that there are two acres of pasture to one of meadow, and the value of their annual production as at least equal to that of the meadows.

The annual value of the grass crop is therefore $500,000,000 in the United States. The annual value of the grass crop of the State of New York is $80,000,000, and in New England it is $70,000,000.

The remark has so often been made that "he who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, is a great public benefactor," that the phrase has become proverbial. In view of the facts just stated, we shall be able to form a more definite estimate of its significance. We shall perceive that the making of two blades of grass to grow where but one grew before, is equivalent to increasing the annual income of New York by the sum of $80,000,000, the annual income of New England by $70,000,000, and the annual income of the United States by $500,000,000.

It is almost impossible for the mind to grasp so sudden and so splendid augmentation of our material prosperity, or the vast acceleration of human progress and human happiness that would be sure to follow in its train. We are groaning daily over the vast debt which has been left to us as the heritage of our last war for freedom and equality. Our legislators are prolific in schemes for its liquidation, and for relief from the presence of the taxation which it entails. Two thousand millions of dollars is the measure of that indebtedness, but if our farmers would resolutely impose upon themselves the task of making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before, the whole of this debt, stupendous and overwhelming as it is, would be paid by only four years of this increased income, without touching upon a single dollar of the revenue that they now enjoy.

The total amount of the debt now owing by the State of New York, and by all the counties, cities and towns included in it, including the bonds of towns and counties for the construction of railroads, is in round numbers, $137,000,000; two years of the increased income of New York, arising from the doubling of its grass crop, would pay the whole of this indebtedness, and leave a suplus of $23,000,000 in the treasury. The average amount of State tax levied upon the people of the State of New York, during the last twenty years, is $2,287,000,

the interest on the increased income, reckoned at only three per cent, would more than pay these taxes.

What we have already said, refers only to the direct revenues derivable from the increase in our grass crops, we must now consider its indirect advantages. The vast increase of manure which will result from the consumption of this augmentation of the herbage grasses must wonderfully increase the production of the cereals mil lions of dollars will be thus added to our income.

The influence of grass culture on the growth of the cereals is very strikingly exemplified by a comparison of the agricultural statistics of France and England. France has fifty-three per cent of its cultivated area under cereal cultivation, while England has but twentyfive per cent. Those who hear the statement made for the first time will be surprised to learn that, notwithstanding this disparity between the areas of the grain lands in the two countries, England produces five and one-ninth bushels of grain for every individual of her population, while France only produces five and a half bushels for every individual of hers. Thus with less than half of the proportional area under cultivation, England produces within seven-eighteenths of a bushel per head of what France does.

She is enabled to accomplish this result solely in consequence of the manure furnished by her grass lands. Every acre of English grain land receives the manure from three acres of grass land, while in France, the manure from each acre of grass land is spread over two and a half acres of grain land, in other words, one acre of grain land in England gets fifteen times more manure than an acre of grain land in France. This statement tells the whole story, and assures us that a like increase of manure would produce a like increase of crops with us. There are many other incidental profits which will arise from the increase of our crops, but this article would swell into unreasonable proportions if we paused to enumerate them all, we will therefore leave our readers to think them out for themselves at their leisure.

THE DOUBLING OF OUR CROPS OF GRASS IS POSSIBLE.

It may be said, and it doubtless will be said, by very many farmers, that to talk of this doubling of our grass crops may be very well to point a moral or adorn a tale, but that it is quite impossible to accomplish it practically. They will assert that the idea is a "castle in Spain," a product of Utopia, an ignis fatuus which will only "lead to bewilder and dazzle to blind."

We believe, on the contrary, that it is perfectly practicable, not