PROF. J. L. RUSSELL'S ADDRESS. 245 



Witness the *Gama grass, which that learned and scientific ag- 

 riculturist, the late Hon. John Lowell, exposed as a coarse and 

 poor production, unfit for our cultivation. At this moment, I 

 have a tuft of another and a Southern grass, called the fMeans 

 grass, growing in my garden, which has been highly recom- 

 mended for soiling, and which looks like something between 

 Broom corn and JCocksfoot or barn grass, and probably about 

 as valuable for us as either. If one would have good English 

 grasses for cultivation, he should resort to those kinds which 

 succeed best in latitudes of the earth similar to our own. Does 

 he need short and sweet pasturage for his cattle or sheep ? — the 

 generic and specific knowledge of the plant will indicate the 

 kind. In some parts of Germany, Belgium, and France, the 

 spurry (spergula arvensis) is used for soiling; it being said that 

 all grazing animals are exceedingly fond of it, and that cows 

 fed on it will yield one third more milk, and make one third 

 more butter, and of a very superior quality § The same plant 

 is an introduced and now naturalized weed in our corn fields, 

 growing in a horizontal and spreading direction, not unlike 

 chickweed, and belonging to the same natural family of plants. 

 Of what value it might prove in the light sandy soils of some 

 parts of the South, where the true grasses thrive so poorly, I am 

 unable to say ; but it may be a question relative to its impor- 

 tance among us. In the vicinity of Boston, the succory (chick- 

 orium intybus) grows luxuriantly, also a naturalized foreigner ; 

 a bitter herb, of which the leaves, which increase in size on cul- 

 tivation, are used, in the neighborhood of Paris, France, to give 

 to milch cows, to increase the yield of milk. There is a slight ob- 

 jection, however; this kind of food imparts a bitter taste to the 

 milk. I have no means of judging how well the cows, which 

 are pastured by the road-sides in Cambridge, relish this species 

 of fodder, except from the luxuriance of the foliage of the plant 

 in question, which does not seem much affected by the visits of 

 these creatures ; and I presume their better judgment would lead 

 them to select a shorter and sweeter feed in the verdant grass, 

 among which it grows a bold and beautiful intruder. 



* Tripsacum dactyloides. t Sorghum halepense. Panicum cms galli. 



§ See Hovey's Magazine of Botany and Horticulture, Vol. XII. p. 285. 



