84 AMERICAN AGRICULTURE. 



\ 



action of soils and accelerating those changes so beneficial 

 to vegetation ; and even the re-absorption of the atmosphe- 

 ric gases, it is probable will more than compensate for their 

 equivalents expelled in burning. The effect is further 

 salutary in destroying grubs, insects and their larvse, and 

 the seeds of noxious weeds. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE GRASSES, CLOVERS, MEADOWS AND PASTURES. 



The order designated by naturalists as GramincB, is one 

 of the largest and most universally diffused in the vegetable 

 kingdom. It is also the most important to man and to all 

 the different tribes of graminiverous animals. Tt includes not 

 only what are usually cultivated as grasses, but also rice, 

 millet, wheat, rye, barley, oats, maize, sugar cane, broom 

 corn, the wild cane and the bamboos sometimes reaching 60 

 feet in height. They are universally characterized as hav- 

 ing a cylindrical stem ; hollow or sometimes as in the sugar 

 cane and bamboos, filled with a pith-like substance, with 

 solid joints and alternate leaves originating at each joint, 

 surrounding the stem at their base and forming a sheath 

 upwards of greater or less extent; and the flowers and seed are 

 protected with a firm straw-like covering, which is the chaff 

 in the grains and grass seeds, and the husk in Indian corn. 

 They yield large proportions of sugar, starch and fatty mat- 

 ter, besides those peculiarly animal products, albumen and 

 fibrin e, not. only in the seeds, but also and especially before 

 the latter are fully matured, in the stems, joints and leaves. 

 These qualities give to them the' great value which they 

 possess in agriculture. 



Of the grasses cultivated for the use of animals in England, 

 there are said to be no less than 200 varieties ; while in the 

 occupied portion of this country, embracing an indefinitely 



