1889.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 185 



Habits and Phtsical CoNSTRUCTioisr or Grass Plants. 



If one should go upon a good grass field, about the first 

 or middle of July, and carefully remove from its bed a cubic 

 foot of soil with all the plants growing thereon, he will find 

 standing upon it about three or four hundred stalks, some 

 two feet and a half or three feet high, surmounted by heads 

 ol" panicles, and bearing upon their sides long and grace- 

 fully bending leaves. A further examination, by carefully 

 washing away the earth from which these have sprung, will 

 reveal an intricate mass of tubular roots interlacing with 

 each other in all directions, the great body of which are con- 

 fined to the upper four or five inches of the cube. Some, 

 perhaps, like those of the clover, will be found to have 

 penetrated deeper, but as a general rule the upper four-inch 

 stratum of any meadow contains nine-tenths of the grass 

 roots growing upon it. 



If he should proceed further still, and analyze any or all 

 of these, he will find them composed of various distinct sub- 

 stances, combined in certain fixed proportions. For in- 

 stance, a thousand pounds of air-dried timothy hay will be 

 found to contain 143 pounds of water, fifteen and one-half 

 pounds of nitrogen, twenty pounds of potash, one and one- 

 half pounds of soda, four and one-half pounds of lime, one 

 and nine-tenths pounds of magnesia, seven and two-tenths 

 pounds of phosphoric acid, one and eight-tenths pounds of 

 sulphuric acid, and twenty-two and one-tenth pounds of 

 silica.* Without these ingredients within reach, and in 

 assimilable form, the half ton of timothy cannot be pro- 

 duced ; and, if nature does not furnish them, the farmer must, 

 or go without his hay. 



The Seed-bed. 

 The first thing which demands attention in preparing for 

 a grass crop is the seed-bed. Nature suggests that it be 

 at least five inches deep, and success is dependent upon its 

 being a good one. It must be so made as to meet all the 

 underground wants of the grass plants, and of such fineness 



* Talks on Manuies, by Joseph Harris, p. 344. 



