( 330 ) 



scarcely practicable ; and the means of feeding cattle di- 

 minish, in proportion as the necessity of animal manure 

 increases. 



In this last ramble, I have met with a variety of the 

 grass called by the botanists Panicum Virgatum, growing 

 in the most luxuriant manner, in bushes, in the sandy 

 soils about Shrewsbury river, New Jersey. The horses 

 and cows, to which it was presented, ate it with great 

 greediness ; and in fact, the only bushes of this grass 

 that were untouched, were those placed within fences. 

 I have recommended to Mr. Rosevelt, a very intelligent 

 farmer at Plack Point, to collect seeds for me ; and he 

 himself was persuaded to try the cultivation of it in the 

 sandy parts of his farm. 



The other observation is on mulberry trees. From 

 the beginning of the seventeenth century, and first esta- 

 blishment of Virginia, the rearing of silk worms has 

 been in contemplation ; but the attempts have been un- 

 successful, — not from any defect of the country, but for 

 want of population, this object of culture being only 

 practicable where many hands can be spared from more ne- 

 cessary labours. The Moravians in Bethlehem , ( Pa. ) plant- 

 ed, with the same view, many European white mulberry 

 trees ; but have abandoned the rearing of silk-worms, 

 from the above mentioned general cause. The trees, 

 left to themselves, grow luxuriantly, intermixed with the 

 American morns rubra, a native of America, and very 

 common in the interior of Pennsylvania. It has happen- 

 ed that they have formed alliances, an event not rare in 

 the vegetable kingdom, among plants of the same genus, 

 and the production is a mixed breed mulberry tree, with 

 the leaves shaped like the American species, but all the 



