CHAPTER VI. 



THE COMPARATIVE NUTRITIVE VALUE OF THE 

 GRASSES. 



WE have seen that the various species of grass differ 

 very materially in nutritive value: that some contain 

 the greatest quantity of nutritive matter when green or 

 in the flower, others when the seed is ripe and the 

 plant mature ; that some yield a luxuriant aftermath, 

 while others can scarcely be said to produce any at all ; 

 that some flourish in elevated situations, and are best 

 suited to the grazing of sheep, while others grow most 

 luxuriantly on the low lands and in the marshes, and sus- 

 tain the richest dairies ; and that no soil is so sterile, no 

 plain so barren, but that a grass can be found adapted 

 to it. 



Some species, indeed, will not endure a soil even 

 of medium fertility, nor the application of any stim- 

 ulating manure, but cling, with astonishing tenacity, 

 to the* drifting sands, while others prefer the heaviest 

 clays, or revel in the hot beds of ammonia ; some are 

 gregarious in their habits, requiring to be sown with 

 other species, and, if sown alone, will linger along till 

 the wild grasses spring up to their support ; others are 

 solitary, and, if mixed with different species, will either 

 extirpate them, usurping to themselves the entire soil, 

 or die and disappear. Nearly every species is distin- 

 guished for some peculiar quality, and most are deficient 

 in some, comparatively few combining all the qualities 



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