The Means Grass and its Cultivation. 33 



stems, shot out from the main roots to the distance of two feet 

 or more, and were just protruding from the surface as the 

 autumn frosts set in. One of these '•'■ rattoons'^ I have se- 

 cured, for another year's trial. Some seed sown in May, in 

 a dry and rocky soil, grew only about three feet high, and 

 the plants were of a depauperated character, although flower 

 stalks were produced. The first named soil seemed best 

 fitted for its culture. 



The Means grass must be regarded as a coarse kind of 

 fodder at best, and of perhaps the same value as the Broom 

 corn, which is a co-species. Unlike that, however, it does 

 not possess half the succulency, nor indeed circumference, of 

 stalk. Its panicles, too, cannot be put to the same economical 

 purposes, however beautiful as ,a garden ornament. The 

 coming winter will doubtless test its merits for hardiness, as I 

 have left the roots wholly exposed. It seems hardly neces- 

 sary to introduce tropical or southern grasses, which are 

 naturally coarse or else wiry, as a substitute for the abundant 

 and softer kinds which thrive in a more temperate clime. 

 The same fate would probably await this, as met the famed 

 Gama grass, lauded in the North Carolina Whig, as we learn 

 in the first volume of this Magazine, for the year 1835, page 

 312, where, by the quotation, we learn, that "James B. 

 Marsh, Esq. has lately brought into cultivation this valuable 

 grass," and "he says his horses, cattle, and sheep prefer it to 

 the best of blade fodder ; and, having tried red-top, timothy, 

 and clover, he is certain that one acre of Gama will produce 

 more forage than ten of those grasses." After such a recom- 

 mendation, it were presumable that agriculture would be on 

 the very tiptoe of expectation and impatience for its introduc- 

 tion elsewhere ; when, lo ! our golden visions were suddenly 

 put to flight by the following morceau in the same volume of 

 the Magazine, page 436, from the pen of that sagacious agri- 

 culturist, the late Hon. John Lowell, who pronounces it 

 "worthless." "I send you," he says, "specimens of the 

 Gama grass. I have it in all soils. With us, it is worthless 

 as so much florin, which made tivo hours'' noise in the world 

 and then expired." 



Dr. Darlington, in his Flora. Cestrica, page 95, tells us, un- 

 der the head of Tripsacum dactyloides, that a "few years 

 ago this grass was much extolled, by some writers in the 



