172 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



examination especially to ascertain the presence of the lower entophytal forms of Fungi or 

 Algol. I found them remarkably free of such parasites, as I expected from the early period 

 of the year, (the Uredos, Ustilagos, Puccinias, Tilletias, and other entophytes most generally 

 appearing later in the season,) with the exception of a few species, and they not in 

 any abundance; and a Helmmthosporium which infests the same grass (Sporobolus indicus) 

 here in the Southern Atlantic States. I found no fungus on the grasses or other cattle 

 food to attract my notice. This place, (Dr. Perl s beef packery,) on the Buffalo Bayou, 

 and Colonel Smith s farm, arc both in Harris County. &quot;With very few exceptions, my 

 entire collection of Fungi, amounting to nearly three hundred species, was made at these 

 two places; and it was also here that Professor Gamgee had the opportunity of examining 

 some twenty-five or thirty cattle, collected from the neighboring pastures and slaughtered 

 at the packery. 



On the 23d of April we left Houston. by steamer, and reached Galveston the next 

 morning, and on the 26th took the steamer for Indianola, where we arrived on the morn 

 ing of the 27th. Finding a sail packet ready to start for Corpus Christi, we took passage 

 and reached the latter place on the 29th. The next day we rode out into the country 

 some six or eight miles from the town, passing through the &quot;Chaparral,&quot; or pastures 

 densely set with cactus and various thorny shrubs. For several miles above Corpus 

 Christi we passed through the mixed growth of prairie and Chaparral. On the Nueces 

 Bay, at the mouth of the river, the face of the country was beautiful, with a gentle rolling 

 surface some fifteen or twenty feet above the waters of the bay, thickly covered with 

 grasses and flowering plants ; and, interspersed with clumps of the graceful mesquite tree, 

 (Algarobia glandidosa,) it presented the appearance of a well-kept lawn. On these prairies 

 the grasses were much further advanced in growth than further north, and I added to my 

 collection many I had not previously seen, and especially one or two species of mesquite 

 grass. 



On our return to Indianola, about one hundred and ten miles north of Corpus Christi, 

 we went out some twelve or fifteen miles into the country all prairie ; and here I was 

 also enabled to add largely to my collection of grasses and other Phenogamous plants. I 

 saw but few Cryptogams either at Corpus Christi or Indianola, a few lichens and two or 

 three species of Fungi comprising all from those localities. These prairie grasses were 

 as free of cryptogamic growth as those about Houston, and, although my attention was 

 specially directed to them, I could see nothing to excite suspicion as to their being differ 

 ently affected from grasses in other places. There were certainly no entophytal fungi 

 infesting them at that time in sufficient quantity to attract my notice. 



The lands which I saw in Texas were all fertile, some of them extremely so. Most 

 of the surface was of a fine clayey loam, in some places rather tenacious. From this 

 cause during a wet spring, as the last one was, it was difficult to prepare for cultivation. 

 I was informed along the coast that the best pastures and the most nutritious grasses were 

 found higher up, from fifty to sixty miles above, and there are the best grazing lands. 



About Houston the grasses are killed for a few months during winter, but at Corpus 

 Christi and along the southern coast they remain green and furnish good pasture all the 

 year round. I here present an analysis of my collection of fungi according to their natural 



