844 [Assembly 



• 



is called '' the Indian mode," and is derived from their practices. 

 The seed corn was dropped into a hole, formed by the stroke of 

 an axe or hoe, and covered. Beyond this, little labor was required 

 until harvest. The potatoe was planted by a very similar process ; 

 the earth being pulverised sufficiently by the hoe alone, to form a 

 slight liiil. The ledge I have mentioned in Jay, yielded at its 

 first occu] ation, by this tillage, crops of corn averaging fifty bush 

 els to the acre.* The early settlers relied chiefly for pasturage 

 and winter fodder upon the wild grasses and herbage, bountifully 

 . supplied by the beaver meadows, the marslies and gkdes of the 

 forests. The indigenous grasses of this region are very nume- 

 rous, and many of them highly nutritious and valuable. Several 

 rarieties of the ferns, brakes and rushes afford excellent hay, 

 particularly for sheep. The instincts of the deer indicate to the 

 pioneer the most useful of these resources. 



The " Deer weed," a plant which springs up in great luxuriance 

 where a conHagration has passed through a woodland, is a favorite 

 food of this animal. I was assured by a settler who had deeply 

 penetrated the Adirondacs, that he found this weed an invalua- 

 ble resort for pasturage in summer, and affording a sufficient sub- 

 stitute for hay in the season of foddering. A wuld grass, pro- 

 nounced the Poa compressa of the botanist, and known in populai:^ 

 language as the '• blue joint," I am confident is well adapted for 

 cultivation, and may be rendered highly valuable, if introduced 

 into our low meadows. I understand the experiment has been 

 successfully tested in the town of Minerva. f Its growth is spon- 

 taneous along the margins of marshes, and upon ridges of earth 

 excavated in forming ditches through wxt lands. This grass often 

 attains more than five feet in height, stands thickly, spreads a 

 massive vegetation, and yields, it is estimated, three and four 

 tons to the acre. Cattle eat it with avidity, and in its nutritive 

 qualities is esteemed scarcely inferior to herd's grass. Among 

 the useful indigenous grasses I may enumerate the panacum 

 t agristoides, poa pratensis, calamagrostis inexpansa. 



Common and numerous, but less valuable, there occur a large 

 list of coarser grasses, various species of the carex family, of the 



^ • Mrs. Blbh, Jaj. f Letter of A. P. Morse, Esq. 



