GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



I PROPOSE to speak of the grasses, a family of plants 

 the most extensive and the most beautiful, as well as 

 the most important to mankind. It embraces nearly a 

 sixth part of the whole vegetable kingdom ; it clothes 

 the globe with perpetual verdure, or adorns it at fixed 

 seasons with a thick matted carpet of green, none the 

 less beautiful for its simplicity; and it nourishes and 

 sustains by far the greater part of the animals that 

 serve us and minister to our wants. 



When we consider the character of our climate, and 

 the necessity that exists, throughout all the northern 

 and middle portions of the United States and the Cana- 

 das, of stall-feeding from three to five or six months of 

 the year, for means of which we are dependent mainly 

 on the grasses, it is plain that, in an economical point 

 of view, this subject is one of the most important that 

 can occupy the farmer's attention. 



The annual value of the grass crop to the country, 

 for pasturage and hay together, cannot Ije less than 

 three hundred million dollars, to say nothing of a vast 

 amount of roots and other plants cultivated and used as 

 forage crops. 



I shall endeavor to give a brief account of the natural 

 history or description of all the useful grasses found in 



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