

GRASSES OF THE SOUTH. 253 



mountains it is a larger growth, in clusters, and hence 

 called bunch grass. This has a second or fall growth. 

 Plains and mountains both exhibit them, and I have 

 seen good pasturage at an elevation of ten thousand 

 feet. In this spontaneous product the trading or trav- 

 elling caravans can find subsistence for their animals ; 

 and in military operations any number of cavalry may 

 be moved, and any number of cattle may be driven, 

 and thus men and horses supported on long expedi- 

 tions, and even in winter in the sheltered situations." 



Little allusion has so far been made to the grasses 

 fitted to the climate of the humid districts of the South. 

 These have an essentially different requirement from 

 either the arid regions of the interior and south-west, 

 or the debatable ground between these and the other 

 extreme in the cool and humid climates of the north and 

 east. From these last they of course differ still more 

 widely. 



Experiment has very satisfactorily proved the impos- 

 sibility of carrying the English and northern grasses 

 under the excessive temperatures found in the South- 

 ern State?. Both the temperature and humidity, or 

 the joint effect of these rather, preclude their growth 

 entirely, though it is difficult to say whether either 

 condition alone would so preclude it. Comparing the 

 more humid climates of England with those of equally 

 high saturation of the South, we might infer that tem- 

 perature alone caused the difference ; but positions in 

 the states near the 39th parallel of latitude have temper- 

 atures in summer quite equal to those near the Gulf, 

 and yet permit a considerable success in the growth of 

 English grasses. 



Agriculturists at the South have scarcely been suc- 

 cessful in the attention hitherto given to the introduc- 

 tion of valuable grasses. Their cultivation is less a 

 necessity of plantation management than of farm occu- 

 pation, as at the North, and it only becomes imperatively 

 such when the preservation of the soil from washing and 

 exhaustion becomes necessary. Such is, at present, the 

 state of much of the cultivated area at the South, and it 



