196 



their scantiness of nutritive growth and for their short-livedness ; and 

 that is, in the hide-bound state in which they are every where found; 

 roots matted, and entangled together into a turf, impervious to the spade, 

 and only pervious to a flat plow-share, dragged by four yoke of oxen. 

 That these grasses are not more nutritive and luxuriant is to be accounted 

 for from their total want of cultivation. Were they either top-dressed 

 with salt, or lime, or ashes, or above all with gypsum, or scarified, hy 

 each of which processes the roots become emancipated, an improved 

 growth would appear ; and this, in a degree, is apparent across any 

 prairie over which there is a road. There we see a change of herbage, 

 occasioned by the travel of the wagon, or the droppings of the horses. 



On my farm, on a slip of unbroken prairie, subject to such cultivation as 

 its proximity to plowed land admits of, I have the tall oat grass, the tall 

 fescue, the fox-tail, besides others, in an improved state. I am of opin- 

 ion, that if these indigenous grasses were subjected to cultivation, a class, 

 every way suited to the climate, might be amply developed. 



The timothy, so far as I have seen, seems to be the most luxuriant 

 grass of the Western States ; its length and thickness of growth, en- 

 titling it to all the favor in which it is held ; but as a pasture, after cut- 

 ting it for hay, it furnishes a sad lack of aftermath ; but this appears to 

 me a general defect here. All the grasses seem short-lived, producing a 

 crop for the scythe, and no more. In the Eastern States, I read that 

 first and second crops of the red clover are of general occurrence, and 

 in high estimation ; whilst in England, almost all the meadows which 

 are not permanently laid down to grass, are sown with red clover and 

 rye, or ray grass, seeds which ripen together, and produce rank, 

 rich meadov/s, yielding two or three tons of hay per acre, of the very 

 finest quality ; and then producing a second crop not much short of the 

 first, and then a good aftermath ; but when the second crop is not taken, 

 which is the practice of the best farmers, the aftermath assumes all the 

 character of a meadow, browsing upon which, the cattle fill themselves 

 without the fatigue of seeking for their food, and rest and fatten. An- 

 other class of meadows, consists of the land laid down to permanent 

 grass, in which the timothy, red top, cocks-foot, fox-tail and fiorin are 

 chief, and these need but a reservation in Spring from pasturage, to 

 produce large crops of hay, of a quality more enduring than the clover 

 meadows, and equally acceptable to cattle and horses. The quantity 

 per acre of this hay, is not so large as the clover and rye grass ; but it 



