104 



AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



THE SWEET-SCENTED VERNAL GRASS (Anthoxanthum 

 odoratum, Fig. 20) is an early and valuable 

 grass, which exhales that delightful per- 

 fume so characteristic of much of the east- 

 ern meadow hay. It is also a late as well 

 as an early grass, and luxuriates in a dry 

 sandy loam. It affords two, and some- 

 times three crops in a season. 



Poa Alpina (Fig. 21), Air a ccespitosa 

 (Fig. 22), Briza media (Fig. 23), and the 

 Agrostis humilis, and Agrostis vulgaris, 

 as well as the Hard and Sheep's Fescue, 

 bdfero noticed, are all sweet, pasture 

 grasses, and excellent for lawns. These, 

 FIG. 20. and a large variety of other dwarf grasses, 



abound on our uncultivated uplands, mountains and wood- 

 lands, creeping in through J,he neglect, rather than the care 



FIG. 21. FIG. 22. FIG. 23. 



of the husbandman. They yield a nutritive herbage for the 

 herds and flocks ; and an almost perennial verdure to the 

 landscape, equally grateful to the rustic eye, or a cultivated 

 taste. 



RIBBON GRASS (Phalaris americana) is the beautiful stri- 

 ped grass, occasionally used for garden borders. It has been 

 highly recommended for swamps, to which, if transplanted, 

 it is alleged that it will supersede all other grasses, and af- 

 ford a fine quality of hay, of an appearance quite different 

 from the upland growth. The writer tried several experi- 

 ments, both with the seed and roots, on a clay marsh, but with- 



