48 AGRICULTURE. 



PART III. 

 CHAPTER XI. 



THE GRASSES. 



NATURE OF GRASSES. If we carefully lift a slice of green 

 growing sod, we find it is made up of a mat of grass plants. 

 We pull these apart, and find that the roots are all fibrous. If 

 we pull up a wheat plant, we find it also has a fibrous root. 

 So has corn. So has timothy. Next take a stalk of timothy. 

 It is round and smooth on the outside. Cut it open. It is full 

 of narrow tubes running up and down. There are some hard 

 joints in the stem. In the case of a wheat straw you find 

 the stem hollow, except at these joints. Now observe the 

 leaves of the green timothy. They are long and narrow in the 

 blade. Pull this blade and you find that where it meets the 

 stem it is wrapped around it, forming what is called the sheath. 

 The sheath is split down one side and is attached to the stem 

 at one of the joints. Further, notice the little growth on the 

 leaf called a " ligule." The leaf then consists of three parts 

 the blade, the sheath, and the ligule. From the structure of 

 the stem and the form of the leaf you can always tell a true 

 grass from other plants, such as the sedges. 



By comparing the following plants you will observe that they 

 have the same kind of stems and leaves, and therefore they are 

 all members of the grass family (graminece): the common 

 grasses of the fields, such as timothy, orchard grass, June 

 grass, fescue ; grain-producing crops such as wheat, oats, rye, 

 barley, corn, millet ; sugar-producing crops such as sugar-cane 

 and sorghum. 



