504 , 
feet high. Next, he is seized with fits of mania in which he is qnite uncontrollable, 
and sometimes dangerous. He rears, sometimes even falling backward, runs or gives 
several successive leaps forward, and generally falls. His eyes are rolled upward until 
only the white can be seen, which is strongly injected, and, as he sees nothing, is as apt 
to leap against a wall or aman as in any other direction. Anything which excites 
him appears to induce the fits, which, I think, are more apt to occur in crossing water 
than elsewhere, and the animal sometimes falls so exhausted as to drown in water not 
over two feet deep. He loses flesh from the first, and sometimes presents the appearance 
of a walking skeleton. In the next and last stage, he only goes from the “ loco” to 
water anddack; his gaitis feeble and uncertain ; his eyes are sunken, and have a flat, 
elassy look, and his coat is rough and Ilusterless. In general the animal appears to 
perish from starvation and constant excitement of the nervous system, but sometimes 
appears to suffer acute pain, causing him to expend his strength in running wildly 
from place to place, pawing, and rolling, until he falls and dies in a few minutes. 
From afew specimens sent we determine the plant to be a species 
of Astragalus, somewhat similar to lucerne in its appearance and mode 
of growth. We invite further information from those acquainted with 
the plant and with its poisonous qualities. 
ORCHARD-GRASS.—Mr. William E. McClure, of Waukesha County, Wis- 
consin, writes respecting a grass of which he desires to know the name. 
He says that he obtained a small head two years ago from an old Rus- 
sian. As the produce of that head he had three quarts of seed which 
he sowed last June. When ripe, it stands from 4 to 5 feet 
high, and it is ripe about the middle of June. It is very early in the 
spring, being 12 to 15 inches high when June grass is but linch. It 
grows in large bunches as timothy does when sowed thin, but, unlike 
timothy, it keeps green all through the summer, and stood 1 foot high 
at the date of his writing, September 29. It stands the winter without 
injury. The grass is Dactylis glomerata or the orchard-grass, so called 
from its adaptation to growing in the shade. Hon. J. S. Gould says of 
it: 
We have seen it growing in great luxuriance in dense old New England orchards, 
where no other grass, except Poa trivialis, (rough-stalked meadow-grass,) would grow 
at all. It affords a good bite earlier in the spring than any other grass, except the 
meadow foxtail. It affords a very great amount of aftermath, and it continues to send 
out root-leaves until very late in the autumn. 
GARRYA ELLIPTICA.—In the “ Garden,” (London, England,) of August 
9, is an interesting account of the Garrya elliptica as a hardy evergreen 
garden-shrub, now being cultivated in England. It is a native of Cali- 
fornia and Oregon, and was first raised from seeds sent from California 
by Mr. Douglass in 1828. These proved to be all male plants. The first 
female plants known in a living state in Europe were sent by Hedwig 
in 1848, and in 1850 they flowered and fruited, and from their seeds 
plants of both sexes were afterwards raised. ‘ The bush grows from 8 
to 10 feet high, and has a rather dense and spreading head, furnished 
with numerous slender shoots, which are downy when young but quite 
smooth when fully matured. It is easily increased, either by layers or 
by means of cuttings of the half-ripened shoots, and grows freely in any 
good garden-soil. The leaves are opposite, somewhat oblong or ellip- 
tical, with a small acute point, rather wavy when young, thick and 
leathery in texture, persistent, of a dark shining green above, and hoary 
beneath. The fruit, which is produced in compact catkins, is a berried 
pericarp, containing two hard, bony seeds, as large as a moderate-sized 
black currant, and of nearly the same color.” 
This is one instance of many in which plants of this country receive 
more attention as to cultivation and come to be better known abroad 
than at home. There are several other species of Garrya in Arizona 
and Mexico which have not yet been introduced into cultivation. The 
