NEW ENGLAND FAllMER. 



Published by JoHis- B. Russell, at tho corner of Congress and Lindall Streets.— TnoiiiAr, c' Pessk.ndf.k, Editor. 



VOL. IV. 



BOSTON, FRIDAY, JUNE 9, 1826. 



NO. 40. 



ORIGINAL PAPERS- 



TO THE EDITOR. OF THE NEW ENGLAND FAS.HEK. 



ON GRASSES.— A'b. //. 

 I have understood that the late Col. John Tay- 

 LOK, that eminent Virginian farmer, had cultivat- 

 ed, with warm approbation, the Tall Meadow Oat 

 Grass. I regret that his account of it has never 



- fallen into my hands. Several years' experience 

 has satisfied mo of its great value to tlie farmer. 

 It springs earlier in tli ? season than any other 

 grass with whicli I am acquainted : has abundance 

 of leaves ; and as soon as mown, it rises again 

 immediately, and produces a vigorous second crop. 

 In its young and tender state, cattle eat it freely : 

 and it will continue, in the ssme ground, among 

 other grasses, an indefinite number of years.* I 

 should, however, prefer sowing it so thick as to 

 occupy the whole ground. It is probably seldom 

 sown thick enough ; for the seed is large : two 

 bushels are little enough for an acre. The seed 

 is easily saved : but cut it the moment the seed is 

 ripe — or it will fall and be lost. Sinclair says it is 

 .subject to the rust, but that " the disease does not 

 make its appearance till after the period of flower- 

 ing ; that it affects the whole plant ; and that at 

 the time wdien the seeds are ripe, tho leaves and 

 fctraws are witliered and dry." Excepting the dry- 

 ness of the stems bearing the seeds, when these 

 are ripe, no part of this description touches the tall 

 meadow oat grass during tlie seven or eight years 

 it has fallen under my obi-^crvation. As to its char- 

 acter for hay, I should advise, on account of its 

 strong stems, rising three or four feet in height, 

 to mow it early, even ratlior l(fore tlian after its 

 flowering state. 



Orchard Grass appears to me to deserve all tho 

 praises I have seen bestowed upon it. Its crops 

 are good — the liay valuable — and it springs imme- 

 diately after it is mown. The seed is easily saved ; 

 of whicii the approved quantity to bo sown on an 

 acre appears to be tw-o bushels. 



Dr Richardson, the distinguished cultivator and 

 patron of the Florin Grass, says he first, in print, 

 recommended Co.ch^s Foot — tliat is. Orchard Grass 

 — to the world ; and if I rightly remember, he 

 somewhere said it was his favourite grass, before 

 he cultivated the Piorin. — Opening, at this mo- 

 ment, his Essay on Agriculture, prefi.xed to his 

 Memoir on Florin Grass, my eye lighted on tlie 

 following passage. " The theorist would have told 

 him [ihe practic/il firmer] that the juices of all veg- 

 etables attain their greatest perfection in their in- 



JJortscence [flowering state] — that it is at this pe- 

 riod alone, all extracts from vegetable substances 

 are taken ; and as in the case of hay the whole 



vegetable is preserved, it is of great importance 

 that it sliould be mowed in its highest state of 

 perfection, — that is, ivhcn the preduminar.l varielus 

 of^g:rasscs are ly flower." — Tiiis refers evident- 

 ly to llio upland meadows, in which, as in New- 

 England, various grasses grow togotlier, producing 

 what is here called E,i!>:lish Hni). 



J)r Richardson's description of his favourite Fio- 

 rin is so mucJi like that of the Fowl Meadow Grass, 

 as given by tlieRcv. J^vred Eliot of Connecticut, 

 as to show, tiiat if not the same, they are near of 

 kin. 



The Florin's favourite soil i ; deep and moist, 

 such IS swamps sufficiently drained. " Yet, (says 

 Dr R.) occasional flooding, or even long subrher- 

 sions, do not seem in tlie least to injure this grass, 

 if rapidly let off." — "Of all low grounds, flat, moistj 

 green, peat moss [in Great Britain and Ireland 

 peat noss is the saine which in New England is 

 called peat meadow] is best adapted to tlie p:o- 

 ducticn of spontaneous lioiin meadows ; for, in ad- 

 dition to tho change v,e mu5t make from wet to 

 dry, peaty soil is congenial to florin, and unfavour- 

 able to its rivals ; and it aflbrds an inexhaustible 

 source of manure. Peat Ashes. Elsev.'here, tht 

 Doctor says, " the soil it most dfdights in, is loose, 

 dry, and of some depth, whether peaty or loamy 



cows preferred lo all other kinds of hay. The 

 product, weighed in March ne.xt after the harvest- 

 ing of it in the p.veceding autumn, the Doctor 

 states to be from four to more than six tons by the 

 English acre, which is the same as that of the- 

 United States. 



In liis fourth esssj-, published in 1753, Dr Eliotj 

 referring to what he had said in the third, that 

 Fowl-Meadow Grass would be in season for cut- 

 ting from July to Otfober, now assigns the reason. 

 He says — " When grbwn about three feet high, it 

 then falls down, but doth not rot like other grass 

 when lodged ; in a little time after it is thus fallen, 

 at every joint it pats forth a new branch : now to 

 maintain this brood of guckers,there must be a plen- 

 tiful course of sap conveyed up through the main 

 stem ; by which means the grass is kept grcen,and 

 fit for 1110 win J all this long period." The Doctor 

 adds, "Whether tliis young growth from the joints 

 be owing to the hori outa! position of the straw, or 

 whether it is a conririuation of the doctrine, that 

 tiie joints of plants are seedvegsels, 1 leave to n-a- 

 turalists to determiiu." 



Dr Richardson's account of his fiorin exhibits a 

 strong lilieness to tie Fowl Meadow. — Visiting 

 his fiorin meadow on the 1st of August, with two 

 of his I'riends, one af whom was Sir Humphry 

 Davy, the latter advised him to leave a part uncut, 

 and to watch wliat the stalks without panicles 

 [seed vessels] would come to: "I did so (says the 

 Doctor ;) and observul them increasing in lengtii, 

 until unable to suppoit their own weight, they fell 

 •hivn, still conlinvinglo lengthen ,• and that when 

 I niowed the piece of reserved meadow, October- 



[* We have conversed with a friend, who has culti- 

 vated this grnss, and who is a scientific a3 well as a 

 practical agriculturist. He »ssure& us that the Tall 

 Meadow Oat Grass will in a few years fail, or bind oi((, 

 as the farmers phrase it. He sowed it, without any 

 intermixture of other g^-asses, on a soil well adapted 

 to its growth. It produced abundantly for several sea- 

 sons, but in ahout seven years entirely disappeared, 

 being superseded by Spear Grass and other natural 

 grasses of th* .-lost frequent occurrence, and which are 

 most prone to intioduce themselves into the pastures 

 and mowing grounds of Nev B:Bg;laud. — Editor.] 



but (he adds) I prefer a soil made dry, by many 

 surface drains, to one naturally so." 



The following extracts from Dr. Eliot's third 

 Essay on Field Husbandry (written ip 17.51) ex- 

 hibit lus description of Fowl Meadow Grajs, and at 

 the sEme time indicate the places wlierc that and 

 Ilerfl-Grass were first discovered ; 

 "There are two sorts of Grass (says the Doctor) j 1st its crop was double the amount of what was 



whicli are natives of the country, which I would cut Augu.^t 1st, and very fine." The joints of tho 



recommend ; these are Herd- Grass (known in Penn- fallen fiorin touching tht ground, occasionally take 

 sylvania by the name of !riinof/(_i/-G™.5.5) the other root — new branches are sent fortli, and trailing 

 is Fowl-Meadow, sometimes called ZJi.'c/i- Grass, • on the ground, cover the surface ; and continuing 



to grow during so long a peiiod, produce the vast 

 crops above mentioned. 



There are, I suppose, several kinds of Fowl 

 Meadow Grass ; but I have seen none answering 

 to Doctor Eliot's description. So there are seve- 

 ral sorts of Fiorin ; but one only, it seems, of the 

 superior excellence ascribed to it by Dr Richard- 

 son. He says the prejudice of the English againsj, 

 it may in some sort be accounted for, by the per- 

 petual intrusion upon them of an inferior variety, 

 the agrostis ridgaiis, hard to distinguish from the 

 true agrostis stolonifera" — or genuine fiorin. If 

 some of the latter were imported from Ireland, it 

 would be a valuable acquisition to our country, 

 particularly to New-England, where there are 

 many swamps and peat meadows .«o situated as to 

 be well drained, and thus fitted for the reception of 

 Fiorin.* 

 The Memoirs of tho New York Board of Agri- 



and sometimes Swamp- Mire- Grass. It is said that 

 Herd- Grass was first found in a swamp in Piseata- 

 7«rt [now Portsmouth, New Hampshire] by one 

 Herd who propagated the same : — That Fowl- 

 Meadow-Grass was brought into a poor piece of 

 meadow in Dedliam [near Boston] by ducks or other 

 wild water-fowl, and therefore called by such an 

 old name. It is supposed to be brouglit into tlie 

 n.eadows at Hartford by the annual floods, and 

 cilled tliere Swamp- Wire- Grass. Of these two 

 sorts of Natural Grass, the Fowl-Meadow is much 

 the best ; it grows tall and thick, makes a more 

 scft and pliable hay than Herd-Grass : — it yields a 

 good burden, three loads to the acre. It must be 

 sorim in low, inoist land. Our drained land, when 

 it is of sufficient age, is land very agreeable to tliis 

 sort of grass." — " Tliis grass has another good 

 quality which renders it very valuable in a country 

 w'here help is so much wanting ; it trill not spoil 

 or suffer, although it stand beyond the common time 

 of mowing. Clover will be lost, in a great meas- 

 ure, if it be not cut in the proper season. Spire 

 Grass, commonly called English Grass, if it stand 

 too long, will be little better than rye-straw : iuf 

 this Fowl-Meadoic may be moived at any time from 

 July to October." — Dr Richardson says the like 

 of Fiorin : but tliat the crop was heaviest when its 

 cutting was delayed till October ; yielding then an 

 immense weight of hay ; which he says horses and 



[* We are informed that specimens of the Fowl- 

 Meadow Grass, which grow iu Dedham, have been 

 submitted for examination to Professor Peck, and to 

 Mr Nutlall, both eminent botanists ; and these gentle- 

 men stated that they were nvt the kind of grass known 

 iu Great Britain by the name of Fiorin {^Agrostis ste- 

 iomfera.) They gave its botanical name, hut we have 

 not learned what that name is. In (he last Phila- 

 delphia F.dition of Willich's Domestic Encyclopedia, 

 under the head " Grasses'''' we find the following pas- 

 sage. " Herd-grasi, White top, Fowl-Meadow grass 



