108 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



the streams and small inland lakes of many of the western 

 States, affords a palatable forage when green, or if early cut 

 and dried ; and the grain, which is produced in great profu- 

 sion, is an exhaustless store to the Indians, who push into 

 the thickest of it, and bending over the ripe heads, with two 

 or three strokes of the paddle on the dry stalks, rattle the grain 

 into their light canoes. The wild ducks, geese and swans, 

 which yet frequent those waters, fatten on this grain through- 

 out the fall and winter. 



TUSSAC GRASS (Dactylis cespitosa) is a luxuriant, salt- 

 marsh grass, growing in large tufts, and is found in perfec- 

 tion on its native soil, in the Falkland Islands, between 51 

 and 52 South, and about 8 east of the Straits of Magellan. 

 Capt. Ross describes it, as " the gold and glory of those 

 islands. Every animal feeds upon it with avidity, and fat- 

 tens in a short time. The blades are about six feet long, and 

 from 200 to 300 shoots spring from a single plant. About 

 four inches of the root eats like the mountain cabbage. It 

 loves a rank, wet peat bog, with the sea spray over it." 

 Governor Hood of those islands says, " to cultivate the tus- 

 sac, I would recommend that the seed be sown in patches, 

 just below the surface of the ground, and at distances of 

 about two feet apart, and afterwards weeded out, as it grows 

 very luxuriantly, and to the height of six or seven feet. It 

 should not be grazed, but reaped or cut in bundles. If cut, 

 it quickly shoots up, but is injured by grazing, particularly 

 by pigs, who tear it up to get at the sweet nutty root." 



ARTJNDO GRASS (Arundo alapecurus). Mr. Hooker 

 from the same islands says : " another grass, however, far 

 more abundant and universally distributed over the whole 

 country, scarcely yields in its nutritious qualities to the tus- 

 sac ; I mean the Arundo alopecurus, which covers every 

 peat bog with a dense and rich clothing of green in sum- 

 mer, and a pale, yellow, good hay in the winter season. 

 This hay, though formed by nature without being mown and 

 dried, keeps those cattle which have not access to the former 

 grass, in excellent condition. No bog, however rank, seems 

 too bad for this plant to luxuriate in; and as we remarked 

 during our survey of Port William, although the soil on the 

 quartz districts was very unprolific in many good grasses, 

 which flourish on the clay slate, and generally speaking, of 

 the worst description, still the Arundo did not appear to feel 

 the change ; nor did the cattle fail to eat down large tracts 

 of this pasturage." 



T have purposely devoted several pages to the description 



