FARMERS' REGISTER, 



651 



knowledge and love of agricultural subjects than 

 his literary eminpiice ; (roin which I will give ati 

 extract, more satisfaciory, prohahly, ihaii any lliin<jf 

 I could say. From his lon<T residence in both 

 Btaies, his opinions are entitled to much weight ; 

 and they liivor the conclusion that our blue-grass 

 maybe successl'uliy cultivated in Virginia. 



" Blue-tjrasp, so called in Virixiiiia, is tiot the 

 grass called biue-gniss in Keiitucl<v. 'i'he Ken- 

 tucUy blue-grass is well known in V^iririnia as the 

 yard grass or greensward. lis root cespiinse, iis 

 flower siiillf eieci like the wheat sialk, its leaves 

 really green. The Virginia blue-grass has a t;ys- 

 tem of iiard wiry roots, its stalks recumbent and 

 bent at the joints or imernodes, and wood}', tough 

 and elastic, and iis color is cerulean, or blue. Both 

 belong to the pna o-enus. Almost every gentle- 

 man's yard in old Virginia is set vviiji what is 

 called kentuckv blue-grass. The greensward, 

 yard grass, or Kentucky blue-grass, will grow on 

 any rich loam, but delights in a rich calcareous alu- 

 minous soil. It will grow well on marled lands of 

 aluminous earih made rich with vegetable matter 

 ol' any kind except the leaves of the more astrin- 

 gent vegetables, such as the oak, &c. The decayed 

 leaves of the black walnut and I lick locust are 

 its favorite food. Hence it grows well even in 

 the shade of these trees. Lands made sufficiently 

 rich to produce these trees planted in them, and 

 marled and sown with the seeds of the green-sward, 

 will in a few years exhibit the appearance ol' 

 Kentucky woodland pastures, allowance being 

 made fur the difl'ercnce in lertilily." 



If it be deemed important or desirable to iniro- 

 fluce a system of permanent pasturage in old 

 Virginia, and if it shall be demonstrated that marl- 

 ing will render your lands capable of producinc 

 Kentucky blue-grass in perltjction, and at the same 

 time so compact as to bear the hoof, you will have 

 rendered an addilional service to your state and 

 country, by the publication of the ' Essay on Cal- 

 careous Manures,' scarcely less important ihnn 

 Townsend did to England by the introduction of 

 the turnip. Blue-grass here bears somewhat the 

 same relation to a ihrifiy and profitable economy, 

 and the improvement of the soil, that roots do to 

 the system of improvement and profit in other 

 countries. 



I have said nothing upon the modes of setting 

 lands in blue-grass and of pasturing them, as \ do 

 not understand your inquiries to extend to those 

 Bubjecls. If, however, such inlbrmation, (or any 

 other in relerence to our rural practice,) shall be 

 deemed useful to the readers of the Farmers' Re- 

 gister, it will give me pleasure to communicate 

 promptly, on request, any in my possession. 



Your correspondent, having never seen a blue- 

 grass pasture, well set, has a great enjoyment in 

 the future. The sight of one of our glorious pas- 

 tures is a thousand times better worili a journey 

 to see than the Natural Bridge of your state. I 

 should be glad to see more Virginians visiting 

 among us ; and would indeed be peculiarly happy 

 to accompany Mr. RufRn in a delightful round to 

 the farms of our principal graziers — " fine old 

 English gcntletnen" — who would be equally glad 

 to see him. Very truly, 



Tho. B. Stevenson. 



We are not less gratified with the contents of 

 the foregoinij communication, than thankful to the 



writer for his having so promptly responded to our 

 call on this subject, in No. 9. We shall be still 

 further gratified, and some of our readers benefit- 

 ed, by an additional communication, on the best 

 mode of setting land in Kentucky '-blue-grass," 

 or what we have known as green-sward. On not 

 only that, but on anij agricultural subject, we shall 

 always be glad to be indebted to the pen of our 

 present correspondent. And we cannot but be 

 surprised, that he should have had the slightest 

 doubt (as expressed in his private postscript.) of 

 such aid from him being desirable and valuable. 

 As a reader of the Farmers' Register, he has 

 known our earnest and often expressed solicitude 

 to obtain articles conveying practical information, 

 from every authentic source, no matter how hum- 

 ble the qualifications of the pensman ; and he, aa 

 the late editor of the Franklin Farmer, one of the 

 best conducted agricultural journals of the United 

 States, had reason to know, by our selections, the 

 value we attached to his writings and to his edi- 

 torial judgment. 



There is no doubt but that the valuable grass 

 which he describes will grow well on our marled 

 lands, even when the soil is so silicious as to de- 

 serve the term of sandy loam ; and on which not 

 a trace of this grass could have been found, or in- 

 duced to grow, belbre marling. We have never 

 known the seed to be sown, (or any to be ofl'ered 

 lor sale in Virginia,) and, except in old yards and 

 garden grass-plots, have never known green- 

 sward to have con)pIete possession of llie land. 

 But wherever we have marled, even on very poor 

 land, this grass soon began to stand in small spots 

 of a few feet, or at most but a few yards across ; 

 and in so many places as to oppose considerable 

 difficulty to tillage ; though not to compare with 

 the wire-grass (the English couch-grass,) of 

 which marl still more favors the growth on dry, 

 sandy soils, and the Virginian blue-grass on clay 

 and moist soils. The green-sward, when fbrminoj 

 a close sod, of unmixed growth, would not be dif- 

 ficult to plough under — if desirable to destroy 

 such valuable pasture — but when in small tus- 

 socks, it is pushed forward or aside by the plough, 

 instead of being subverted, and is therefore more 

 difficult to be managed under a tillage crop. 



We trust that some of our several readers, 

 who possess enough botanical knowledge for 

 the purpose, will contribute to effect the ofiject 

 suggested by Mr. Stevenson in regard to the 

 forming a convenient and correct nomenclature 

 of American grasses, so as to get rid of the into- 

 lerable confusion which exists, in consequence of 

 different vulgar or provincial names being in many 

 cases used for the same grass — in other cases, the 

 same name being used for different grasses — and 



