18 SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 



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spring ; while our stock are luxuriating on the fresh bite of the 

 newly sprung crab-grass." Mr. Howard does not mention 

 the Japan clover (Lespedizea striata). This exotic, as we 

 learn from reports to the Department of Agriculture, is rapidly 

 taking possession of uncultivated places in South Carolina, 

 and even in Tennessee. It is highly relished by sheep, and, 

 although short, furnishes a good pasture from May till frost. 



The grass, however, par excellence for summer pastures at 

 the South is the Bermuda grass,* and would seem to surpass 

 any known at the North. This species, chiefly found at 

 present in Middle Georgia, though abundant in Louisiana, was 

 introduced from the West Indies, and is believed to be identi- 

 cal with the celebrated daub, or sacred grass, of East India. 

 Being stoloniferous in its habit, it clings so closely to the soil 

 that it is eradicated with great difficulty ; and, rapidly propa- 

 gating itself by means of its runners, it was regarded as the 

 worst pest of the cotton plantation. " Fighting General 

 Green " became a proverb which illustrated the perpetual 



* This grass is known in India by the various names of daub, doob, darbba, 

 or darva. Sir William Jones, in his " Botanical Observations of Select Indian 

 Plants," published in " Asiatic Researches," vol. iv. p. 520, speaks thus of the 

 darbba or daub grass : " Every law-book and almost every poem in Sanscrit con- 

 tains frequent allusions to the holiness of this plant ; and, in the fourth Veda, 

 we have the following address to it, at the close of a terrible incantation : ' Thee, 

 O Darbba ! the learned pronounce a divinity, not subject to age or death ; Thee 

 they call the armor of Indra, the preserver of regions, the destroyer of enemies, 

 a giver that gives increase to the field. At the time when the ocean resounded, 

 when the clouds murmured and lightnings flashed, then was Darbba produced, 

 pure as a drop of gold/ " 



Capt. David Richardson, in the seventh volume of the " Asiatic Researches/' 

 says of this grass, which he calls " doob grass : " " This is probably one of the 

 most useful and beautiful grasses in this or any other country ; and, like the 

 cow which feeds on it, is held in high religious veneration by many tribes of 

 Hindoos. A natural velvet carpet, if the expression be admissible here, may 

 at any time be formed of this elegant grass, in the space of two or three weeks, 

 merely by cutting it in pieces and sprinkling them on prepared ground mixed 

 with earth. In this way, the beauty of rivers, public roads, fortifications, gar- 

 den walks, and marginal borders, is frequently secured in India, upon principles 

 which unite expedition, elegance, and strength, in one verdant sward, which, to 

 those unacquainted with the rapidity of vegetation in these climes, has almost 

 the appearance of enchantment." It is curious to observe that the same mode 

 of propagating this grass is followed in India as in our States at the South. 



