166 AGRICULTURAL TEXT-BOOK. 



cure, and therefore expensive, but it is found that in Pennsylvania, when 

 once it is rooted, it is only exterminated by the plow. (See Patent Office 

 Report, 1849, p. 373.) With the writer, in a very rich damp loam, the 

 culm grows fully three feet high. 



(wi,) Is held to be the best permament meadow grass in England, for 

 rich lands. It so greatly resembles Timothy that it is difficult to distin 

 guish it when not in blossom, but it affords much more leaf, the culm 

 is finer, and the aftergrowth heavier. We have found the winters too 

 cold for it in Michigan, and would not recommend it in this latitude. 



(n,) Is also an English grass, of second rate value, and has proved too 

 tender for this climate. Where it prospers it is chiefly valuable for 

 pasture. 



(o.) The same remarks will apply to this, (p,) Our experience with 

 this has been accidental, it having appeared in the corner of a perma 

 ment meadow, and spread over a large space, exterminating all the 

 other grasses. It is an early, rich growing species, with great abund 

 ance of leaf, stalk and seed, makes excellent hay, and cattle of all kinds 

 prefer it to Timothy. We mention it here that more experiments may 

 be made with it. Should it not prove difficult to exterminate, like the 

 English Couch grass, we know no native species that has more to re 

 commend it on clay soils. (7.) This, known as the Ribbon-grass of 

 the Gardens, prospers luxuriantly in wet marshes, soon covering them 

 over, and forming a dry elastic surface. After a few years, the leaf as 

 sumes one color. Horned cattle eat it, but horses do not appear to like 

 it. It may be planted, by throwing roots into the water, at a foot or 

 two distance from each other. The seed appears to be barren, and it is 

 subject to a species of Ergot. Mr. Allen failed to make it prosper on a 

 clay marsh in New York, (r) and (.s.) Prof. Gray, supposes these 

 grasses to be naturalized from Great Britain, and that the latter is pro 

 bably a mere variety of the former, but a more valuable grass. They 

 prosper best in moist or boggy alluvial soils, but are of little general in 

 terest in this country. Of the Southern grasses we know nothing per 

 sonally. The best accounts of them will be found in various volumes 

 of the Patent Office Reports* 



*Since writing the above, a communication has been received fr.&amp;gt;m J. M. McAllis 

 ter, Esqr., Summerville, Cass Co., Michignn, \vhohnse.\perimented upon a great va 

 riety of native and foreign grasses. He finds Orchard grass peculiarly valuable ; but 

 the most important that he has met with, is Randal Grass, the seed of which was re 

 ceived from Virginia. He has succeeded in introducing this extensively into Cass 

 and the neighboring counties. (See Farmer -a Companion, vol. iii, p.30.) The seed 

 resembles that of the Rye Grass ; the living plant we have not seen, and do not know 

 the botanical name. 



