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poor, and not to be encouraged where better grasses will grow. The 

 latter has a creeping root. Chamber's Encyclopaedia says of it: 

 " The roots sometimes extend five or six feet in a season. They con- 

 tain much nutritive matter, and are a very acceptable food to horses 

 and cattle, but especially to hogs, which grub them up." I hope to 

 get specimens from Oregon that will enable me to settle this matter. 

 While the meadow soft grass may not make hay of the very first 

 quality, it certainly deserves a trial, where a sod is wanted, and other 

 grasses will not flourish, on the peaty lands along our rivers, in our 

 mountain valleys, and in the fog belt of the northern coast. 



WHAT IS MESQUITE? 



A great deal of good ink and paper has been spoiled in arguing this 

 question. According to Webster's Dictionary, this is " supposed to be 

 a word of Indian origin." " The natives make it a word of three syl- 

 lables, as mes-ke'-ta." It is the name of a shrub, or small tree, which 

 grows in Texas, and from there south and westward. I believe it is 

 found in the southeastern part of this State. The pods and beans of 

 the tree are excellent forage. In Texas, there are certain fine grasses 

 which grow habitually under and about the mesquite tree, and to dis- 

 tinguish them from the coarser "sage grass," and on account of their 

 situation, they are called " mesquite grasses." The name may have at 

 one time designated a single species, now it is applied to about a dozen 

 grasses in Texas, belonging to several genera, and is about as definite 

 as the term " corn," as used in Scripture, or by an old English farmer. 

 There is no reason why meadow soft grass, which probably is not 

 indigenous to Texas, should give up its time-honored name in favor 

 of an indefinite barbarism. I have been told by Texans that they 

 had never seen meadow soft grass in that State, though they were 

 familiar with various forms of mesquite grass. On the other hand, 

 one of the Oregon mesquite raisers says that his seed came direct 

 from San Antonio, Texas, and was said to be native there. If his is 

 Holcus lanatus, we have but to call attention again to the fact that the 

 United States Government has for more than twenty years been dis- 

 tributing seeds all over the continent, to say nothing of private 

 importations, and it is not surprising to find European grasses grow- 

 ing everywhere. 



The whole controversy shows plainly the value of definite scientific 

 names and descriptions. It is to be hoped that in the near future a 

 greater proportion of our young farmers will avail themselves of the 

 opportunities offered them, free, by our University of California. 

 The intimate acquaintance with nature and her laws, which is culti- 

 vated in the College of Agriculture, must be an advantage in any 

 future struggle with her, besides being a life-long source of pleasure. 

 It certainly cannot make a man less practical to know a choice grass 

 from a weed, a friend from a foe, in the insect world. 



Those grasses on which I have written are such as I am personally 

 acquainted with. There are many that deserve favorable notice if 

 time would permit. Before closing I will mention, if only briefly, 

 some of the other forage plants which have been tried in our State 

 and approved, and some which deserve trial on account of their 

 record elsewhere. That giant of grasses, Indian corn, is almost as 

 generally sown for fodder as in New England, but sorghum and 

 imphee are crowding it in popular favor, on account of smaller 



