CHAPTER XVII. 



GRASSES. 



History. — The cultivation of wheat, corn, oats, 

 barley and rye is very ancient; that of wheat and bar- 

 ley perhaps antedating the others. The sowing of 

 grass and forage crops is of comparatively recent 

 origin. 



Permanent pastures have existed for many centuries, 

 in the civilized countries, but the custom of sowing 

 grass seed to produce pasturage and hay is 

 scarcely a hundred years old. The lack of any 

 cultivated grasses was one of the difficulties that the 

 early colonists had to contend with in this country. 



The introduction of red clover into England did 

 not take place till 1633 ; that of white or Dutch clover, 

 not till 1700. Of the natural grasses our well known 

 timothy was first brought into cultivation in this 

 country, and it was not cultivated in Eagland until 

 1760. The culture of orchard grass was first intro- 

 duced into England from Virginia in 1764. There is 

 no evidence of any systematic or artificial cultivation 

 of grasses there until the introduction of perennial 

 rye grass in 1677, and no other variety of grass-seed 

 appeared to have been sown for many years, not, in- 

 deed till toward the close of the last century, upon 

 the introduction of timothy and orchard grass.* 



The average weight of cattle and sheep sold in 

 1710 in Smithfield Market, which ia many senses 

 bears the same relation to England as the Chicago 

 Stock-Yard market does ta America, was: beeves 



*"A Hundred Years Prog.ess," U. S. Dept. of Agr., 1872, p. 277. 

 190 



