SOLON ROBINSON, 1845 493 



perfectly astounding to one who has been accustomed 

 to seeing better management. Now the very worst of 

 these waste gullies can be reclaimed into the best of 

 pasture, and the further waste prevented by Bermuda 

 grass alone, and that in one, or at furthest, two years. 

 It will even adhere to the perpendicular sides of banks, 

 and in the bottom of ditches it will grow and collect the 

 wash, and again grow up through the accumulating dirt, 

 and again collect another coat of wash, so that it not only 

 prevents the further waste, but in a measure will fill up 

 many of the smaller gullies already formed. 



The Bermuda is an exceedingly valuable grass, and 

 ought to be cultivated universally upon road-sides, em- 

 bankments of canals, railroads, and levees, to bind them 

 together and prevent their washing away. It is now 

 to be found in the greatest abundance around Natchez 

 and through the hilly land of Adams county. It is also 

 abundant around Vicksburgh, and is considerably spread 

 through several of the river counties of the lower part 

 of the State. Its cultivation ought to be encouraged and 

 extended through every county of this State, as well as 

 all the other Southern States. I do most earnestly recom- 

 mend every one of your southern readers to take im- 

 mediate steps to procure a start of this grass, and if they 

 can procure but a single root to begin with, be sure to get 

 that, and they will soon be able to get a stock from which 

 they can in a few years make the most valuable pasture 

 of any other in the south. 



Cocoa Grass. — There is another grass that is greatly 

 despised and dreaded here, because, when it takes pos- 

 session of the land, it can no longer be cultivated in cot- 

 ton, and not well in anything else. This is the bitter 

 Cocoa. That it is destructive to cultivation I will not 

 dispute; but that the land should be abandoned, as it 

 often is, on account of it, and suffered to go to waste, I 

 shall dispute; because it will take a world of argument 

 and some experience to convince me that a cocoa planta- 

 tion cannot be made more profitable than a cotton plan- 



