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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



their true homes in multitude ; and the rigid, flavour- 

 less, and dusky foliage covers all the ground. What 

 different economy here regulates the panorama of vege- 

 table existence and increase ! The chance, wind-wafted 

 seed may serve to propagate the lonely perennial tenant 

 of the rift ; but such distribution would do little towards 

 fulfilling the more extended purposes circumstances now 

 require. The grasses here most useful are chiefly 

 annual — in habit, perhaps, compact and tufted, but 

 evanescent and renewing. Most annual plants are pro- 

 lific, free to flower and mature seed alternately ; and 

 when the latter is scattered, the parent dies. Roots, 

 clustering foliage, and flower-stems decay in mass, to 

 feed and foster a succeeding generation, destined in its 

 turn to fade, and be supplanted by its offspring. 



The number of seeds produced by one of these annual 

 grasses has not been recorded — possibly they have never 

 been counted ; but we find them vegetating so abund- 

 antly in their several localities, as to confirm the general 

 fact of its vastness. But no mere passing glance of 

 this kind can enable us to form any correct idea of the 

 all-but-limitless powers of propagation belonging to 

 many species of plants, and especially to those whose 

 individual duration is confined to a single season. A 

 few instances from annuals belonging to families of far 

 higher grade than that before us, though they will not 

 decide the question as to the multiplication of our 

 grasses, will at least indicate the wideness of the range 

 to which it may possibly extend. A single stalk of the 

 common tobacco furnished upwards of three hundred 

 and sixty thousand seeds. This fact was ascertained 

 by weighing the whole produce, which amounted to 

 three hundred and sixty grains troy, one thousand and 

 twelve seeds weighing only a single grain. A single 

 thistle developes more than twentrj-four thousand 

 seeds. The square of these numbers would, of course, 

 give the produce of the second crop, supposing all of 

 the seeds produced to vegetate ; and the result is 

 startling to those unaccustomed to observations and 

 facts of the kind. In the thistle, it amounts to 576 

 millions ; in the tobacco, we require twelve figures to 

 express it— 129,600,000,000, or 129,600 millions. The 

 Roman poet of husbandry informs us that the thistle is 

 a dreadful nuisance in corn-fields ; and the English 

 farmer would profit by reading a lesson from the 

 " Georgics," remembering at the same time the num- 

 bers here given, and that, prolific as the thistle may be, 

 there are other weeds equal to it in productiveness, or 

 even more so, although the tobacco, with its twelve 

 figures of numeration, is wanting. 



Regarding the number of flower-stems thrown up 

 during their short season of growth by many of our 

 little sand-grasses, and taking into account the circum- 

 stance that the same summer often witnesses the ma- 

 turity of two or even three successive generations, 

 although our statistics of propagation in their case are 

 not yet forthcoming, we need not hesitate to admit them 

 into comparison with the foregoing. The poorer the 

 land, the more they abound and multiply ; and when 

 the soil becomes enriched, either by art or by their own 

 decay, they abandon it, or rather, cease to flourish, and 

 disappear, being overpowered by the more vigorous and 

 perennial growth of new arrivals. 



It is unnecessary here to enumerate the individual 

 workers. They are many ; and one succeeds another. 

 Species less and less rigid gradually become associated 



with the earlier and meagre settlers; then perennial 

 ones, with broader and brighter-green foliage ; then the 

 wild animals and the sheep begin to feed upon the 

 mingled vegetation. Many of the secondary colonizers 

 are thus regarded as pasture-grasses. Such are some 

 of the fescues, which improve in foodful quality with 

 improvement in the condition of the soil. The grada- 

 tions of grass-value, in this respect, are so finely traced, 

 that it is difficult to draw the line of demarcation be- 

 tween the simple innutritions colonizer and his half- 

 endowed successor, which the hungry pasture-feeder 

 hesitates whether to bite or leave untouched. 



When these perennial grasses grow in very elevated 

 and exposed situations, their flower-stems, instead of 

 developing flowers, bear small leafy buds, forming masses 

 that might at first sight be mistakenforinflorescence: these 

 buds, eventually dropping off or being carried away by 

 the wind, root where they fall, and rapidly mature into 

 young plants. In such instances, the parts which should 

 compose the floral organs, as the chaffy scales, stamens, 

 and pistil, are present rudimentally, but, in lieu of as- 

 suming their several characters, become miniature leaves. 

 There is not anything mysterious in this, as you will 

 find remarked in my introduction to " The Grasses of 

 Great Britain." Every flower is, strictly considered, a 

 condensed branch or stem, and each of its parts or 

 organs a modified leaf, and, as such, liable to develope 

 as a common leaf when unrestricted by the peculiar 

 conditions which compel it to assume a. different form. 

 Garden-cultivation affords numerous instances of this 

 liability to floral metamorphosis, every double flower 

 that decorates the parterre being an illustration of the 

 passage of one set of organs into another. Our double 

 roses are frequently disfigured, in the estimation of the 

 florist, by presenting a green, leafy centre, the result of 

 an imperfect modification of the leaves that, in the na- 

 tural state of the flower, would compose its pistils. I 

 have succeeded in raising a rose-bush by planting such 

 a production, which was, indeed, only planting the ter- 

 minal bud of a branch. The multiplication of a grass 

 by its modified flower-buds is, therefore, a parallel 

 process in organic development. 



It is, then, only the capability of our colonizer to 

 adapt itself to circumstances that is deserving of re- 

 mark ; and we might search in vain for any instance of 

 the kind among the vegetation of the lowland meadow. 

 It is only on the dry and elevated rocky pasture, and 

 on the high table-land and the mounta n-side, swept by 

 bleak winds that tend to derange and interrupt the 

 functions necessary to the production of seed, or rather, 

 perhaps, where the short duration of the summer heat 

 is insufficient for ripening the latter, and afterwards 

 maturing the young plants to a size and strength suffi- 

 cient to enable them to withstand the long winter cold, 

 that grasses assume this curious and interesting habit, 

 under which they are said to be viviparous — a term de- 

 noting the production of living offspring. 



The viviparous habit does not belong exclusively to 

 grasses, nor, among them, to the colonizing species 

 only ; but it is one that materially assists in their propa- 

 gation, as well as in that of their immediate successors. 

 The grand object attained by it appears to be a saving 

 of time, as the seedling plants of perennial grasses rarely 

 flower until the second year ; while these living offsets 

 are productive about the same period as the individuals 

 from which they were scattered. 



