4 A TEXT-BOOK OF GRASSES 



com, sugar-cane, the giant reed, and the bamboos. In 

 the popular mind even the grains may be excluded from 

 the idea of grasses. Without introducing at this point 

 the exact botanical definition of a grass, it may be said 

 that grasses include such representative plants as timo- 

 thy, wheat, corn, sugar-cane and bamboos, but exclude 

 the clovers, the sedges, and the rushes. 



5. The value of farm crops. — The total value of all 

 crops produced in the United States in 1909 was $5,487,- 

 161,000.* In this respect, Illinois leads among the states. 

 The. following table gives the relative rank of the first 

 ten states: 



TABLE I 



Total Value (Dollars) of All Farm Crops in 1909 for the Ten 



Leading States 



The total value of the leading crops indicates the 

 relative importance of those derived from the grass 

 family as compared with those from other families : 



TABLE II 

 Total Value (Dollars) of the Leading Crops in 1909 



Cereals $2,665,539,714 



Hay and forage . 824,004,877 



Tobacco 104,302,856 



Cotton and cotton-seed 824,696,287 



Sugar crops 61,648,942 



Vegetables 418,110,154 



Fruits and nuts 222,024,216 



Forest products of farms 195,306,283 



The total valuation in Table I does not include forest 

 products except such as are produced on farms. The 



*The statistics of this and other tables are taken from the Thirteenth Census 

 of the United States, Vol. V. 



