222 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
attains to the average height of about two and one-half feet in fruit, but 
in dry seasons large tracts almost exclusively composed of this species 
are without a single fruiting plant. It is sometimes cut for hay, in the 
absence of the more productive species, and makes an article of first 
uality. 
: Buchloe dactyloides, Engelmann.—This is the noted buffalo grass of the 
region, and may be recognized at once, and be distinguished from all 
other species, by its low, dense, tufted growth ; also by. its stolons, from 
which it spreads rapidly. It never attains to the height of ‘over two or 
three inches, except with its male flower stalks, which sometimes reach 
two or three inches above the leaf growth. These have at their summit 
a few flat spikes of male flowers only. The female flowers are clustered 
down close to the earth, and nearly covered with the tufted leaves. Male 
and female flowers are borne by the same plants, not by different plants, 
as was at one time believed. It grows most abundantly in the central 
region of the plains, and affords nutritious but rather scanty grazing 
for domestic animals; yet its value as a winter forage plant 1s not to be 
overlooked, as its stolons remain green duréng the winter months, and, 
combined with the dead leaves, afford to closely- -orazing animals @ rea 
sonably good living. In Southern Kansas the plant reaches its eastern 
limits, about one hundred miles west of Fort Scott. There it first ap- 
pears in small distinctly outlined patches a few feet in diameter, and in 
narrow strips or lines at the base of low elevations on the large prairies. 
We were puzzled to understand how this humble grass was holding its 
place here in the midst of strong, tall, growing competitors, Andropogon 
and Sorghum surrounding it closely, but not venturing on an inch of its 
territory; but we soon succeeded in discovering that the phenomenon 
resulted from local soil conditions. At the depth of half an inch below 
the surface of these areas, the soil, for an inch or more downward, is 
closely compacted and hardened, so as to prevent the roots of plants 
from penetrating through it. These areas, being thus unfitted for the 
growth of deep-rooting plants, had become open for settlement by this 
humble species, which requires only a shallow soil to sustain it. This 
hardened condition of soil at the base of these low elevations is evi- 
dently from the agency of alkali, or some related mineral substance fil- 
tering through the soil and cropping out at these places. Not having 
tested the conditions under which the plant exists in the heart of the 
plains, the center of its home, we are unable to say whether similar 
phenomena attend it there; but that an alkaline saturated or tinetured 
soil is essential to its growth has been disproved by the cultivation of 
the plant east of the Mississippi, where it flourishes ‘finely, but is unable 
to compete with its intruding neighbors, and is soon overrun and de- 
stroyed. As an instance showing its tenacity of life, we record’ the fact 
of its having withstood the treading of the animais in a farmer’s feed-lot 
where every other green thing had been destroyed. Whether it can be 
turned to any profitable account in the agriculture of the country re- 
mains for future experiment to determine. 
Monroa squarrosa, Torr.—This comparatively worthless species some- 
what resembles the buffalo grass in habit and mode of growth, and 
might be taken for it by those unacquainted with the latter species, the 
fascicled and tufted leaves of its prostrate branches resembling the 
stolons of Buchloe. The plant is an annual, with rigid and rather ‘large 
foliage, and bears its fruit almost entirely ‘concealed in the sheaths of 
its numerous leaves. It is rather common in the mountain district and 
on the Upper Missouri, but does not abound on the richer soils east- 
ward, -/\" 
