170 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



by the wallowing of hogs. The estate comprises about four thousand 

 acres, pretty ecpially divided in quantity into prairie and heavily tim- 

 bered land; Oak -and cedar are the prevailing timber. There are also 

 pines, hackberry, pecan, elm, a«h, i)hini, persimmon, &c., &c. There 

 are four species of grapes, at least. The mustang and niuscardine 

 abound in immense quantities. Both these vinos, which are heavy bear- 

 ers, make an excellent wine. The grasses are numerous; those growing 

 si)ontaneously on the black lands, when protected from the bite of ani- 

 mals by inclosure, make an excellent hay. The adjacent waters modify 

 the temperature of the air most sensibly, both in summer and winter. 

 The winter cold is about 5^ milder than that of Houston, as shown by a 

 comparison of thermometers. The fields when cultivated in corn, cotton, 

 and sugar cane, as before the war, yield abundantl.y." 



After my return to Houston I went into the country, about three 

 miles from the town, to a farm-house on the Buffalo Bayou, where I 

 employed about two weeks in examining the. pastures and grasses and 

 making collections of fungi and other cryptogams. The wooded 

 growth along the .banks of the bayou, consisting of Magnolia, Laurus, 

 Ilex, TJngnadia or Spanish buckeye. Pecan, Tilia, &c., &c., afford a fine 

 field for the fungi, and at this place I collected about two hundred dis- 

 tinct species. The pastures were quite green, but the grass still young 

 and scarcely sufficiently grown to be identified. I collected here all 

 that were in flower and could be distinguished. My attention was 

 directed to their examination, especially to ascertain the presence of the 

 lower entophytal forms of fungi or algte. I found them remarkably free 

 of such parasites as I expected from the early period of the year, (the 

 Uredos, Ustilagos, Puccinias, Tilletia, and other entdphytes most generally 

 appearing later in the season,) with the exception of a few species, and 

 they not in any abundance; and a Helminthosporium which infests the 

 same grass {Sporohohis Indicus) here in the Southern Atlantic States. I 

 found no fungus on the grasses or other cattle food to attract my notice. 

 This place, (Dr. Perl's beef packery,) on the Buffalo Bayou, and Colonel 

 'smith's farm, are both in Harris County. With very few exceptions my 

 entire collection of fungi, amounting to nearly three hundred species, 

 was made at these two places ; and it was also here that Professor Gam- 

 gee had the opportunity of examining some twenty-five or thirty cattle, 

 collected from the neighboring pastures and slaughtered at the packery. 

 On the I'.'jd of April we left Houston by steamer, and reached Galves- 

 ton the next morning, and on the 2Ctli took the steamer for Indianola, 

 where we arrived on the morning of the 27tli. Finding a sail packet 

 ready to start for Corpus Christi, we took passage and reached the latter 

 place on the 20th. The next day we rode out into the country some 

 six or eight miles from the town, passing tlnougli the "chaparral" or 

 pastures densely set with cactus and various tliorny shrubs. For several 

 miles above C'orpus Christi we passed tlirough the mixed growth of prairie 

 and chaparral. On the Nueces Bay, at the mouth of the river, the face of 



