PEOCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 329 



"prairie grass which seems to be a species of rice, but growing 

 npon dry soil. It produces a very lean grain, but cultivation 

 might improve it as other grains and the potato have been. It 

 grows twice as large and tall from between the turned over sods 

 where the prairie is first broken, as it does on that which is 

 Tintouched. This grass constitutes what may be called the tall 

 grass region of Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. But upon the upper 

 half of the Platte, Kansas and Arkansas rivers, far superior 

 grasses for grazing set in, called the Buffalo, Bunch, and Gramma 

 grasses. They turn to hay in dry weather and thus feed the 

 Buffalo and other granivorous animals both summer and winter. 



Is there any attempts to introduce them here? They might, 

 where there is a longer continuance of moisture, grow a larger 

 grain and, perhaps, become cereals, as well as grazing grasses. 

 ■ There is a twining plant called the pea vine, bearing a finely 

 .flavored pea, growing in all the woods bordering the prairies, 

 but I have heard of no attempt in its cultivation. The stock 

 are very fond of grazing upon the whole plant. It grows on a 

 stiff stem, 'several feet high, and then branches into several 

 twiners that will take hold of adjoining ones, and thus be held 

 from falling to the ground, favoring the convenience of its culti- 

 vation. 



But, in 1849, I saw a plant, growing in the prairie, ten miles 

 south of Booneville, Cooper county, Missouri, which has not, so 

 far as I can learn, been noticed in any botanical work. It does 

 not resemble the grass family, but must be classed in some of 

 the orders of the exogenous herbs. It rises on a stem one or 

 two feet high, and ramifies gradually, terminating in many little 

 straight twigs. In the forks of each pair of twigs, a single 

 round grain grows about double the size of a grain of wheat, 

 having a taste somewhat like wheat, but is more brittle. Its 

 leaves are roundish, about the size of a white locust leaf. It 

 seems to grow mostly in the rather moist than in the dryer part 

 of the prairie. Cattle seem to prefer it to the grain of the 

 prairie grass. This might, perhaps, be a cereal, worth, if culti- 

 vated more than the buckwheat crop, which, according to the 

 census reports, may now amount to $12,000,000 per year. 



I have written, for several years past, to several friends there, 

 to send me some of the seed and a specimen plant, but they say 

 the prairies are now so eaten out by cattle, and turned into 

 fields, that they cannot find it. But, I think, it might be found 



