Graminee.] THE HIMALAYAN MOUNTAINS. 42] 
agriculture, it cannot be expected that much attention should have been paid to the 
subject of Hay and Pasture-grasses in India, though some districts, as that of Hurriana,* 
like the natural pastures and meadows of the British isles, are celebrated for their 
pastures, and their herds of cattle. The subject is one of the greatest importance, not 
only as affording pasture for horses and agricultural cattle, but also for improved breeds 
of sheep, which India is likely to produce, and to export their wool. The plains 
of India being subject to great heat, with drought at one season, and heavy rains at 
another, cannot be expected to present any pasture-grounds resembling those of the 
best parts of Europe; but the temperature of the cold weather months, especially in the 
northern provinces, being such as to be most favourable for the cultivation of the same 
cereal grasses as in Europe, it is not surprising that good grass is produced there, and 
that many European gentlemen prepare very excellent hay. Their rapid growth, great 
height, and subsequent dryness, render many of the Indian grasses unfit for pasture 
at the end of the year. This the inhabitants of the tracts at the base of the Himalayas, 
as well as those within these mountains remedy, by yearly burning down the old and 
dry grass, so as to allow the young blades, which immediately sprout up, to afford fodder 
for their cattle. But Europeans in India infinitely prefer, or indeed only give their 
horses, the creeping stems and leaves, scraped off the ground by the grass-cutter, of 
that grass, which is known by the name of doob or doorba, and which flowers, nearly all 
the year round, and is, fortunately, by far the most common in every part of India. In 
Northern India it is a common practice to form lawns and pastures of moderate extent, 
by planting pieces of the creeping stems of this grass, which yields excellent hay in 
what is the spring of the year in Europe. Dr. Roxburgh, writing in the south of India, 
also describes it as the most valuable kind, as forming three-fourths of the food of their 
horses and cows. By the Brahmins of the coast it is held sacred to Ganesha, (the 
Jonas of the Ancients), under the name of Doorwall; it has sometimes been intro- 
duced into England, but it is a well-known British species, though not common, 
being the Panicum, or Cynodon Dactylon, of botanists. Cattle are also fed on chopped 
straw (bhoosa), as well as on the stalk of the joar (Sorghum vulgare), cut into small 
pieces, and then called kurbee; of this all kinds are remarkably fond. They 
are also fond of the straw of many other of the cultivated Gramineae, as of Pas- 
pulum scrobiculatum, and Kora, Penicillaria spicata, Panicum italicum, frumentaceum, 
miliare, and Eleusine egyptiaca. Buffaloes, also, are fed on kans, or Imperata (Sac- 
charum) spontanea, and its varieties, which are stacked for this purpose. 
India is not, however, destitute of pasture-grasses, but they belong to genera and 
tribes 
* As the district of Hurriana’is celebrated for its pasture-grasses, I requested my friend, Col. Colvin, of the 
Bengal Engineers, to make a collection of the grasses in the neighbourhood of Hansi, which he was good 
enough to do, and sent me a small collection of very fine specimens, but which, I did not find, differed much in 
kind from those in the Doab. They belonged to the genera Panicum, Pennisetum, Cenchrus, Chataria, Vilfa, 
Dactyloctenium, Chloris, Eleusine, Achrachne, Poa, several species of Eragrostis, and Andropogon. 
