CHAPTER I. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE TRUE GRASSES 

 WHICH ARE USED FOR FORAGE. 



THE grasses, in popular language, are variously 

 divided. They are sometimes designated as natural 

 and artificial : the former comprising all the true 

 grasses ; that is, plants with long, simple, narrow 

 leaves, each leaf having many fine veins or lines run- 

 ning parallel with a central prominent vein or midrib, 

 and a long sheath, Fig. 1, divided to the base, which 

 seems to clasp the stem, or through which the stem 

 seems to pass, the stem being hollow, with very few 

 exceptions, and closed at the nodes or joints ; and the 

 latter the artificial comprising those plants, mostly 

 leguminous, which have been cultivated and used like 

 the grasses, though they do not properly belong to that 

 family; such as the clovers, sainfoin, and medic. In 

 common language the term is often used in a sense not 

 strictly proper, being not unfrequently applied to any 

 herbage which affords nourishment to herbivorous or 

 graminivorous animals, including, of course, not only 

 many leguminous plants, like clovers, but some others 

 which would more properly be called forage plants. 



But in botanical language, and speaking more pre- 

 cisely, the grasses, Grraminece, embrace most of the 

 grains cultivated and used by man, as wheat, rye, Indian 

 corn, barley, and rice j all of which will be at once recog- 



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