134 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



MEETING FOE LECTURE AND DISCUSSION. 



Saturday, March 21, 1896. 

 A meeting for Lecture and Discussion was holden today at 

 eleven o'clock, the President, Erancis H. Appleton, in the chair. 

 The following paper was read by the author : 



Grasses. 



By Professor F. Lamson-Scribner, B.8., Chief of Division of Agrostology, United 

 States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. 



Coming to Boston to address you on the subject of grasses, is 

 like carrying coals to Newcastle, for is not this the liome of the 

 widely known and justly celebrated author of Flint's " Grasses 

 and Eorage Plants " ? But the subject is a broad one — as broad 

 as the world is wide, and as varied as it is broad ; so broad, and 

 embracing so many diverse lines of investigation, all alike inter- 

 esting, that I have found it exceedingly diflficult to determine 

 what subjects to take up, or where to draw my limitations. Good 

 things will stand repeating, and in a multitude of counsellors 

 there is safety. New ideas are rare indeed, but in the applicatiort 

 of old ones may spring a happy thouglit of use to some one, and 

 there always exists this possibility to encourage the speaker. 



" The grass faileth ; there is no green thing," is an apt expres- 

 sion of the extremity of desolation. Where there is no grass, 

 there are the absolute deserts. Where our best grasses abound, 

 and where they receive the most attention, there we find our high- 

 est civilization and greatest prosperity. Destroy the rich verdure 

 of our pastures and meadows, and how much of the pleasure as 

 well as the profit of the farmer's life would be blasted. Destroy 

 the little grass plat of the contracted yard of the citizen, and 

 how much would the enjoyment of domestic life be narrowed. 



Grasses may be considered the plebeians among the families 

 of the vegetable kingdom. They are ubiquitous, and in all 

 temperate regions innumerable. In their number of species they 

 constitute one-fourth of the flowering plants of the arctic zone, 

 one-twelfth of those of the temperate region, and from one- 

 twelfth to one twenty-fifth of those of the tropics. In the 

 countless myriads of individuals, particularly in the temperate 

 zone, grasses far surpass all other orders of plants. They form 

 the rank and file of the army of plants ; but here, as in armies of 



