AND RURAL ECONOMIST. 15 



common stock of such soils, is the most profitable sort he 

 can depend on. 



GEASSES. The limits of our plan will oblige us in this, 

 as in many other articles, to omit, or give but brief sketches 

 of subjects which might be profitably attended to in more 

 minute detail. 



Grass is a general name for plants used in feeding cattle 

 in a green or dry state, for hay, or for pasture. 



It would require a large volume to describe all the kinds 

 of grass which are or may be cultivated in the United 

 States. Sir John Sinclair observed, (Code of Agriculture, 

 p. 219,) that there are in all two hundred and fifteen grasses, 

 properly so called, which are cultivated in Great Britain. 

 The duke of Bedford caused a series of experiments to be 

 instituted by George Sinclair, to try the comparative merits 

 and value of a number of these grasses, to the amount of 

 ninety-seven, the result of which is annexed to Sir Humphrey 

 Davy's Agricultural Chemistry. According to these experi- 

 ments, tall fescue grass {festuca elatior) stands highest as to 

 the quantity of nutritive matter afforded by the whole crop, 

 when cut at the time of flowering ; and meadow cat's-tail 

 grass, phleiLin pratense, called in New England herd's grass, 

 and timothy grass in the southern states, affords most food, 

 when cut at the time the seed is ripe. 



An able and elaborate article on the grasses, Avritten by 

 Judge Buel, republished from the American Farmer, was 

 given in the New England Farmer, vol. ii. p. 161, 174. 

 This consisted of a ' Table, exhibiting, in one view, the com- 

 parative talue of some of the best grasses cultivated in the 

 United States and in Great Britain, their products, nutritive 

 matter, time of flowering and seeding, &c.' To this are added 

 remarks, from which we have extracted the following : 



' I have found in our publications on agriculture very little 

 information on the improvement of our meadow and pasture 

 grounds. Indeed, the names of our native grasses are scarce- 

 ly enumerated, much less are their habits described, or their 

 relative merits for hay and pasture pointed out, in any Ame- 

 rican work which has fallen within my notice. A conside- 

 rable portion of our lands are unsuitable for the system of 

 convertible husbandry, that is, an alternation of grain and 

 grass crops. Of this description are our stiff clays, marshes, 

 and swamps, and all those lands in which tillage is rendered 



