150 BOARD OP AGRICITLTURE. 



their roots remain there, and the material of those roots is 

 gathered very largely from the atmosphere ; so that when we 

 raise a grain crop we leave in the soil a small quantity of ma- 

 terial taken from the air, but when we cultivate a deep-rooted 

 plant which grows the season through, we leave a large amount 

 of atmospheric matter in the soil. 



Again, in ordinary culture some plants are permitted and 

 required to reach a crisis of growth which others are not al- 

 lowed to attain. This crisis is seed-production. 



Our meadow grasses are of the same botanical order as the 

 cereal grains ; which means that all these plants are of the 

 same great race and closely resemble each other in their 

 most characteristic features. The noble wheat and the scoun- 

 drel quack are, in fact, brothers of the same family, both be- 

 ing of the genus Triticum. The latter is sometimes termed 

 wheat-grass, as if in allusion to this brotherhood. There are 

 two other grasses, vagabond members of the wheat family, 

 living obscurely in this country. Barley and the ' oat have 

 each two brothers of low degree — worthless grasses, living on 

 salt or sandy shores, or^on rocky hills, and unknown to the 

 cultivator. 



If wheat, instead of being allowed to ripen its seed, as is 

 our universal practice, should be mown or fed off just before 

 heading out, it would throw out new shoots and continue to 

 grow the summer and autumn through, would come on the 

 second year and deport itself as a perennial ; would in fact, 

 become grass in the usual sense of that word. Wheat is pro- 

 bably not hardy enough to make a good substitute for Timo- 

 thy, but it is sufficiently so to justify our statement. 



The reason why wheat under our culture is an annual is 

 that the process of seeding exhausts the plant, and as a con- 

 sequence it dies out naturally. It is the universal opinion 

 among farmers that the meadow grasses are weakened very 

 much by being allowed to go to seed. I have myself ob- 

 served that where Timothy seed was raised the crop of grass 

 the next year was very small, although the soil was excellent. 

 The plants had suffered severely from being allowed to go to 

 seed, notwithstanding Timothy has a bulbous root, which 



