BUNCH GRASS. 363 



in fact, it thrives upon the poorest soil. In autumn, 

 about September, when all other grasses turn to hay, 

 and their nutriment is washed out by the autumnal 

 rains, the bunch-grass, after shedding its seed, begins 

 to put forth a green shoot within an apparently withered 

 sheath. It remains juicy and nutritious, like winter 

 wheat in April, under snow ; and, contrary to the rule 

 of the Graminese, it pays the debt of nature, drying and 

 dying about May : yet even when in its corpse-like 

 state a light yellow straw it contains abundant and 

 highly-flavoured nutriment. I brought back with me 

 a small packet of the bunch-grass seed, in the hope 

 that it may be acclimatised. . The sandy lands about 

 Aldershot, for instance, would be admirably fitted for its 

 growth." 



Enough has been said to demonstrate that they who 

 expect great things from the utilitarian turn recently 

 given to natural history are not indulging in chimerical 

 hopes. Those of this generation have already witnessed 

 greater accessions to the number of domesticated ani- 

 mals than were made for many previous centuries ; and 

 as it is by means of acclimatisation and hybridisation, 

 or what Mr Darwin terms natural selection, that the 

 earth has been furnished with all varieties of animals 

 and plants, we are imitating nature when by science 

 we bring about those modifications of animal and vege- 

 table life which she effects slowly, because Providence 

 wills that the greatest transmutations shall result from 

 man's intelligent intervention. Nature does not pro- 

 duce the Montreuil peach, or the Fontainebleau grape. 

 Wheat is nowhere found growing wild ; and, as Buffon 

 asks, to have modified a species of grass into wheat, is 

 not this a kind of creation ? Nature has not given us 

 the Durham ox, the Southdown sheep, or the English 

 race-horse. These and a thousand other instances 

 might be mentioned are examples of the manner in 

 which man, for his convenience and comfort, modifies 



