152 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



the year round, so that their owners are never at one dol- 

 lar of expense to keep them. 



This is the famous wire-grass that grows every where in 

 the piney woods, tender and nutritious when young, but 

 tough enough when old. It grows in tufts, starting out 

 from the root in early spring, and keeps on growing as fast 

 as the cattle eat it, until late in the fall, when it grows 

 more slowly and the cattle are apt to leave it and seek the 

 moss-draped hammocks for two or three months. 



Florida has other grasses too that are destined before 

 long to supply her with all the hay she needs, some native, 

 others imported. We shall speak of them by and by, but at 

 present we shall only speak of those that make a close, 

 thick turf, and can be made important factors in the 

 work of making home beautiful. 



Carpet grass is one of them. It is a native of the coun- 

 try, and makes a low, tolerably close mat of green, but it 

 does not grow evenly as a lawn grass should do, nor will it 

 endure uninjured even our light winters, so we do not very 

 much approve of carpet grass. We want something bet- 

 ter and more permanent around our houses, and we find it 

 in Bermuda grass. This is a fine, dark-green turfy grass 

 that is yearly growing more and more in favor ; the sole 

 objection to it, either as lawn or pasture grass, being its 

 habit of straying out of bounds, and this is a very small 

 matter in comparison with its real value. We heard of 

 Bermuda grass when we first came to Florida, and there 

 chanced to be a small patch of it on our land, where a few 

 roots, sent to the former owner from Kentucky, had been 

 carelessly stuck down. The patch was not a yard square, 

 and no more was to be had. But we wanted grass, no mat- 

 ter how little it might be. We felt lost without our plat 

 of green to rest the eyes on when sitting on the porch, 

 so two small plats of the sandy soil were leveled ofi* and 



