299 



Wheat crop in Ohio, by years, since 1850. 



[From P'ritz (ISSO), p. 303. The figures for 1850-1877 refer to the average of two coun- 

 ties, viz, Belmont in the southeast and Erie on the north border of the State. The fig- 

 ures for 1878-1883 are averages for the whole State.] 



GRASSES. 



Relative to the acclimatization of the grasses Sporer (1867) says: 



As in the Alps and Himalayas up to altitudes of 15,000 to 16,000 

 feet, so also in the farthest north, beyond the limit of trees, the 

 grasses flourish. The varieties that compose the grassy carpet of 

 Taimyr are still somewhat numerous. They embrace 10 families 

 and- 21 species; about one-half belong to *the sour-grass family, 

 the binse or rushes, ried (reed), woold or cotton grass. But fully 

 one-half are the sweet grasses, such as in central Europe are esteemed 

 the best fodder, and not less so in Taimyr Land, where they extend to 

 the shores of the icy Arctic Ocean beyond latitude 7.5° 30' north, 

 including among them the '' wiesen " or meadow ^ass, the rispen or 

 ray grass (Poa pratensis), and the " rasen schmiele " or turfy hair 

 grass, Ahri desc/unnpsia ea'spitosa. It is not surprising, therefore, 

 that the best milch cattle, the so-called " cholmogor breed,'" the suc- 

 cessors of the cattle transported thither from the Netherlands by the 

 care of Peter the Great, should flourish in the desert polar regions at 

 Mesenja. 



The sour grasses, as genuine earl}^ spring plants, form their floAvers 

 in the previous summer season, and at the beginning of the northern 

 summer (July 10 to 20) are in the fullest bloom and have already 

 turned brown when the sweet grasses begin to show their flower buds. 



In general the ground thaws only to the depth of a few inches and 

 the roots do not penetrate into the frozen soil. The tundra of north- 

 ern Russia and Siberia rests on such a frozen soil ; the steppe or 

 prairie or llano rests on unfrozen, deeper, and dryer soil. 



The modest circle of plants that surrounds our Arctic Circle is 

 not so complexly constituted under different longitudes as are those 

 of the warmer phenological girdles of the globe; everywhere we 

 have the same species of plants and the same families; everywhere 

 the gramineae, the crucifera?, the caryophyllea% and the saxifra- 

 gacea^, are the dominating families, and among the genera the Draha 

 Saxifj^aya., Ranunculus^ Carex^ and the meadow grasses; all these 



