22 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



It is an axiom in vegetable physiology, that most of the 

 edible and herbaceous plants are influenced by wet and 

 drought more than by heat and cold. Because a species of 

 grass is a native of a milder country, it does not follow that 

 it will not succeed -in a colder climate. Vital force in the 

 vegetable, as well as in the animal world, is a wonder work- 

 ing force. It is something of which we are conscious ; but of 

 its nature we know nothing. Why, we ask, why, during the 

 rebellion, those exotic recruits known as "counter jumpers," 

 withstood the hazards of war vastly better than the boys from 

 the farms, inured to the exposures of out-door life, unless 

 the muscular labor of the latter had expended more of their 

 vitality ? 



If a grass, not a native to the manor born, here finds a 

 congenial soil, the influence of that soil with proper cultiva- 

 tion will naturalize it. Time may be required, for rarely 

 does nature proceed by a leap. The lucerne of Italy {Medl- 

 cago sativa), a plant allied to the clover family, as a result of 

 difierence of soil and culture, becomes the "Alfalfa" of Cali- 

 fornia. The beautiful ribbon grass of the gardens, loses its 

 stripe in a wet and muddy soil. 



Just so far and so fast as this department of our natural 

 history is explored, is it discovered what a large number of 

 grasses especially suit each of our various geological forma- 

 tions of soil. England, with a land surface less than twice 

 of Maine, cultivates 200 varieties of grasses, whilst our union 

 of States, with its three million square mites of occupied ter- 

 ritory, cultivates scarcely twenty. 



We might name a large number of new grasses, native and 

 foreign, which the appetites of animals have shown would be 

 valuable acquisitions, but the subject in itself afibrds material 

 for a separate treatise, and briefly noticing a few must suffice. 



The first of our new friends to be introduced is Florin, or 

 White Bent (Agrosiis stolonlfera) , a desirable sort foi- pas- 

 tures and moist mowing fields. Its stoloniferous (witch grass 

 like) roots are more than a match for the " liftings " of Jack 

 Frost. 



