BOOK THE TENTH. 



ON THE CULTIVATION AND APPLICATION OF GRASSES, 

 PULSE, AND ROOTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



ON THE NATURAL GRASSES USUALLY CULTIVATED. 



FT1HE term Grass is commonly employed as embracing the whole of 

 J_ the plants growing in a meadow or pasture. Grass-land similarly 

 indicates any land the crop upon which may be mown for hay, or 

 grazed by stock. Even a cursory examination of the herbage of 

 established pastures and meadows will serve to show that it includes 

 plants of many different kinds. It is possible, and at the same time it 

 is convenient, to arrange these, for purposes of study and examina- 

 tion, in three groups, embracing (1) grass plants, (2) clover plants, and 

 (3) all other plants. The first group includes the true grasses, or 

 gramineous plants, belonging to the natural order Graminea?. The 

 second group comprises the clovers, trefoils, &c., members of the 

 natural order LeguminostB. The third group embraces all the other 

 plants, which are neither gramineous nor leguminous, and which are 

 sometimes spoken of, in connection with grass-land herbage, as mis- 

 cellaneous plants or "weeds." Such are buttercups, cuckoo-flower, 

 chickweed, campion, ragged robin, silver-weed, earth-nut, daisy, dande- 

 lion, thistle, hawkweed, hawkbit, knapweed, yarrow, selfheal, yellow 

 rattle, speedwell, plantain, dock, sorrel, rush, sedge, adder's tongue, 

 and moss. 



This chapter is restricted to a discussion of the true grasses, and 

 mainly of the cultivated grasses, though some incidental references are 

 made to the weed grasses. As introductorj^ thereto it may be useful 

 to the reader if we record a few facts respecting grasses as a group, 

 and concerning the characters whereby grasses are distinguished from 

 each other, and from the plants which most nearly resemble them. 



The general structure of grasses will be best understood by 

 examining a grass plant pulled up by the root. It is at once seen 

 that the root consists of a large number of more or less coarse 

 threads, called root-fibres. They serve to attach the plant firmly to 

 the soil, and afford at the same time the means whereby the plant 

 takes up, in solution, its food from the soil. This fibrous root of the 



