1847.] The Grasses. 39 



we shall not describe it. (See plate 1, fig. 1.) It received its 

 name of timothy from Timothy Hanson, who is said to have in- 

 troduced it into Maryland. Another account says that he took it 

 from New York to Carolina, and Loudon in his Encyclopedia of 

 Plants, an English work, states that, " it received its name from 

 Timothy Hanson, who brought it from New York and Carolina 

 about 1780." It does not succeed well in the southern states, 

 not well enduring their long and often dry summers. We allude 

 to the states south of Virginia and Tennessee, excepting the 

 mountainous portion of North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. 



During our rambles at the south to collect plants, we were often 

 informed by planters, that they had attempted its cultivation and 

 always failed. One stated that he had sowed it on new bottom 

 land on which many of the largest trees had been left in order to 

 protect it from the sun, but it was of no avail, the grass dwindled 

 and died during the months of August and September. Several 

 of these planters had emigrated from Virginia where they had been 

 used to its cultivation. 



Timothy is a native of Europe, whence it has been introduced 

 into this country. It belongs to a small genus of plants of which 

 there are but five or six additional species, nearly all indigenous 

 to Europe. One other species, the Phleum alpinum, has been 

 found in Arctic America. 



Timothy is often sown with clover, with which it makes an ex- 

 cellent hay; however, a great objection to this practice is that it 

 does not arrive to maturity as soon as clover, and unlike most 

 grasses it contains the most nutriment when the seed is nearly 

 ripe, consequently it should not be cut until its juices are suf- 

 ficiently thick to gum a scythe. According to the experiments of 

 Sinclair, the ripe crop exceeds in value the flowering as fourteen 

 to five, or in other words the ripe crop possesses more than twice 

 the nutriment; but from our experience we doubt there being so 

 great a difference. The aftermath is light, affording but little fall 

 pasturage, but when not mowed there are few grasses that excel it 

 for summer pasturage — we mean summer in the strictest sense of 

 the term, since it should not be turned into until the month of 

 June in the climate of western New York, and here the reader 

 will see the advantage of having other grasses for early pastur- 

 age. An eminent grazier in one of the southern tier of counties 

 in this state, (N. Y.,) who owns from two thousand to three thou- 

 sand acres of land pursues this course. He always keeps between 

 one thousand and two thousand sheep, and generally pastures 

 through the summer about five hundred head of cattle; in addition 

 to his other pastures, he keeps large fields of fifty or more acres 

 seeded down with timothy. In the spring he buys cattle in Ohio 

 or Pennsylvania and drives tbera to his farm, where they are turned 



