BOTANY. 105 



see each other at a distance of ten feet. The soil and climate 

 were evidently very favorable to it. During the last six or 

 eight years, the wild oats have been eaten down so closely by 

 cattle, that in many places they have been killed out. They 

 are propagated from year to year, not by the roots, but by the 

 seeds, many of which fall into cracks in the earth, where they 

 lie in safety until the rains come, when the ground closes up 

 and the grain sprouts. The earth cracks in the summer, in 

 many parts of the state ; and in places where the wild oats 

 grow, the position of the cracks of one year may be traced the 

 next season by the position of the stalks of the grain. 



The wild oat grows on hill and plain, and furnishes a large 

 part of the wild pasture of the state. It is wholesome, nutri- 

 tious, and palatable for cattle. Much of it is cut for hay. The 

 amount of grain which it furnishes is small in proportion to 

 the quantity of straw, and it is never threshed. 



After the wild oats, in importance to the herdsman, comes 

 the "burr-clover," so named from a spherical burr, about a 

 quarter of an inch in diameter, which it bears in clusters of 

 three. Tliis burr-clover is found in all the settled parts of the 

 state. Cattle do not like it when greeil ; but after it dries, 

 the burrs fall upon the ground, and are picked up by the cat- 

 tle, while the strans^er is astonished at seeino- them eatino* and 

 keeping fat on what appears to him to be bare earth. On ex- 

 amining the surface of the ground, he will find that it is cov- 

 ered with the dry stalks and burrs of the burr-clover. The 

 bloom consists of three very small yellow flowers. It is said 

 that the stalks of this clover take root whenever the joints 

 touch the ground. 



The alfilerilla {Erodlwn ciciUarium) is another indigenous 

 nutritious herb of much importance to the herdsman. It is 

 succulent, sweet, hardy, bearing clusters of spikes or pins an 

 inch and a half long. These spikes have given it the name of 

 pin-grass ; and the resemblance of its leaves to the geranium 

 has sugrgrested the name of " wild oferanium," bv which title it 

 is also known to some persons. It has a large root, which it 

 5* 



