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farm-houses, you meet with patches of Agrostis linearis, a 

 sweet grass, always cropped close to the ground; but no 

 where with a grassy turf of any extent. This is a remarkable 

 circumstance in a country so much favoured in point of climate ; 

 and where the variety of indigenous grasses is as great as in 

 any other portion of the world of equal extent. Several 

 causes, it is probable, contribute to produce this uncommon 

 sterility. The high winds, so prevalent for the greater part of 

 the year, but more especially about the period when the grasses 

 are in flower, either damage the whole plant, prevent the fecun- 

 dation of the germ, or shake out the grain before it arrives at 

 maturity. At this season, likewise, the periodical rains cease; 

 and such of the seeds as had escaped the effects of the wind, 

 fall on a parched soil, where they must remain in a torpid 

 state until the next rainy season sets in, after a lapse of six 

 or seven months. They lie, in the meantime, exposed to the 

 depredations of an infinite variety of birds and insects, parti- 

 cularly of the ants and termites, with which the surface of the 

 ground is absolutely animated. These destructive insects 

 retain their activity throughout the year, and are constantly 

 in motion, day and night ; nothing therefore in the shape of 

 food escapes them. They never attack any part of a living 

 plant; but seeds of all sorts are devoured by them on the 

 spot, or carried off to their magazines. 



" It is owing, perhaps, to this interruption in their natural 

 progress to maturity and decay, that these grasses almost 

 invariably throw out branches from the joints, after the main 

 stalk has failed. These branches succeed each other after 

 each successive miscarriage, and it is not uncommon even to 

 find secondary branches issuing from the joints of the primary 

 ones. Thus their existence appears to be protracted beyond 

 the natural period, in efforts to fulfil the end of their creation. 

 Notwithstanding these efforts, however, the greater part of 

 them must have ceased long ago to exist, were it not that 

 they possess the faculty of propagating themselves by the 

 root; which they accomplish either by pushing out long 

 creeping shoots, sometimes over, at others underneath the 

 surface of the soil; or by forming a regular succession of 



