262 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



We heard lately of a gentleman who followed this unique 

 plan, only that he threw down his sprigs on the ground, 

 instead of a rock, and made a little pen around the precious 

 morsels to protect them from live-stock marauders till they 

 should get a fair start. But the roots seemed in no hurry 

 at all. They sauntered very slowly and deliberately across 

 their little inclosure; and finally, after two years of pa- 

 tient waiting, the outraged owner gathered in his crop of 

 Bermuda grass, roots and tops, just filling a bushel basket. 

 But he was one of the persevering kind that are sure to 

 succeed sooner or later. He had, moreover, less faith in 

 himself than he had in the grass. The first trial had been 

 made on high, dry land. Now he set out his roots on the 

 sides and bottom of a deep gully and on low, moist land. 

 There, to his joy and somewhat to his surprise, the grass 

 made more growth in two months than it had done in the 

 two years before. 



The next season he set out a five-acre field with Bermu- 

 da, putting down the sprigs, their joints well covered, two 

 or three feet apart. In three years those detached patches 

 had joined into one beautiful green meadow, where sheep, 

 cows, and calves, were made happy and fat. 



And just here we have one of the great points of excel- 

 lence of this valuable grass, namely, its adaptability to low, 

 moist land, where most grasses will not thrive at all. So 

 thoroughly at home, in fact, is the Bermuda in damp situ- 

 ations, that it does not mind getting into the water any 

 more than a duck. It may be placed in hollows subject 

 to occasional overflow, without suffering the least detri- 

 ment, after weeks or even months of enforced retirement 

 beneath the waters. 



It grows well on " white-sand land," or the poorest clay, 

 and is an incalculable boon to the owner of worn-out or 

 washed-out lands. It will enrich them by its decaying 



