44 GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



by Gray and others, to ^hjceria. It is very common in wet 

 meadoAvs and will be easily recognized. More nutritive when 

 in flower than when the seed is ripe. It contains a compara- 

 tively large per cent, of sugar. Makes a valuable fodder and 

 cattle Eft'e very fond of it. 



Several other species belonging to this genus, are frequently 

 met with, as the Branching Spear Grass, on dry sandy soils, a 

 very elegant species, with a large panicle of sea-green spikelets ; 

 the Hair Spear Grass, also an elegant grass growing on similar 

 soils, with a hairy branching panicle over a foot long, leaves 

 linear, nerved. But perhaps the most important of all is the 

 Fowl Meapow, or False Redtop, (j)oa serotina.') [See Frontis- 

 piece.] 



The specific characteristics of this species are two to four, 

 sometimes five, flowered spikelets, oval, spear shaped, ligules 

 elongated, flowers acutish, green, often tinged with purple, roots 

 slightly creeping ; wet meadows and banks of streams, A'ery com- 

 mon. Flowers in July and August. In long continued moist 

 weather the lower joints send up flowering stems. The panicle 

 is erect and spreading when in flower, but more contracted and 

 drooping when ripe. It is perennial. Native of Germany. 



It early commended itself to the attention of farmers, for 

 Jared Eliot, Avriting in 1749, says of it : " There are two sorts 

 of grass which are natives of the country, which I would recom- 

 mend, — these arc Herds-grass, (known in Pennsylvania by the 

 name of Timothy-grass,) the other is Fowl Meadow, sometimes 

 called Duck-grass, and sometimes Siaamp-icirc Grass. It is 

 said tliat Herds-grass was first found in a swamp in Piscataqua, 

 by one Herd, who propagated the same ; tliat Fowl Meadow- 

 grass was brought into a poor piece of meadow in Dedham, by 

 ducks and other wild water-fowl, and therefore called by such 

 an odd name. It is supposed to be brought into the meadows 

 at Hartford by the annual floods, and called there Swamp-wire 

 grass. Of these two sorts of natural grass, the fowl-grass is 

 much the best ; it grows tall and thick, makes a more soft and 

 pliable hay than Herds-grass, and consequently will be more fit 

 for pressing, in order to ship off with our horses ; besides it is a 

 good grass, not in abundance inferior to English grass. It yields 

 a good burdeji, three loads to the acre. It mui^t bo sowed in 

 low, moist land. This grass has another good quality, which 



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