YALE AGRICULTURAL LECTURES. 107 



FOURTEENTH DAY. FEB. 16, 1860. 



Two new lecturers were introduced to us to-day, viz., Mr. 

 JOHN STANTON GOULD, of Hudson, N. Y., and Mr. JOSEPH 

 HARRIS, of the Genessee Farmer. Mr. Gould's name was 

 made familiar to the farming public at the time when he was 

 chairman of the famous national reaper trial of the United 

 States Agricultural Society. His lecture was not only replete 

 with interesting facts and practical suggestions, but adorned 

 with those graces of scholarship he knows so well how to 

 employ. 



After an allusion to the^ a3sthetic character of the grasses, 

 their economical relations were adverted to. Providence has 

 attested their importance by the provision it has made for 

 their diffusion and preservation. While other plants, such as 

 the fig, orange, and grape, can only be successfully cultivated 

 within narrow belts of latitude, the grasses extend over the 

 whole globe. Very curious and various provisions are made 

 for the diffusion of the seeds ; many of them are furnished 

 with creeping roots. They are not, like other plants, injured 

 by the laceration of their herbage. One-sixth of all the plants 

 on the globe belong to this family 230 genera, including 3,000 

 species, are already known, and new species are constantly 

 presenting themselves. Six-tenths of the cultivated area of 

 New York is devoted to the growth of grass, and the annual 

 value of the crop is $60,000,000. In the six New England 

 States its annual value is $6,000,000. In the United States, 

 $300,000,000. If we succeed in making two blades of grass 

 grow where but one grew ' before, we increase our annual in 

 come $300,000,000. 



It was argued that we might easily double our production 

 of grass, if we would set vigorously at work to accomplish it. 

 The average production of New York is 96 tons of hay to the 

 100 acres ; but th j average production of King's county is 

 160 tons to the 1 00 acres. This result is wholly due to the 



