136 Assembly 



THE GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



By Judge Van Wtck, of the Farmers' Club of the American Institute. 



American Grasses. We say American because we mean to ex- 

 amine those which are indigenous or generally so considered to our 

 country. Although some of these whose character and uses we may 

 look into, may not be natives or their nativeism may be questioned, 

 yet they have been so long cultivated among us and their usefulness 

 so well established, their character and habits so congenial with our 

 various soils and climates, and all this proved by many years of suc- 

 cessful cultivation, we conceive we shall not stray much to style them 

 natives or American. It is not meant to call the grasses here noticed 

 by their botanic names, but to call them only by the names they are 

 generally called and known. It is intended also to use scientific 

 terms as rarely as possible, should brevity or convenience, which is 

 sometimes the case, induce a use of them such use will generally be 

 accompanied with a definition. The botanic names of the grasses can 

 be found in most scientific works, including the leading periodicals of 

 the day that treat on the subject. 



The importance of the grass plant to the farmer is greater than any 

 which he cultivates, and he derives more benefit from it, and all indi- 

 rectly, for it is not his food, than any other plant. The grasses, too, 

 enrich land when properly covering it ; they are the best coat of ma- 

 nure for it, a considerable portion of them if only tolerably good, 

 and even if used as pasture, fall or are trodden down and decay, and 

 mix with the earth, and assist in making up what is called the mould 

 or surface soil, the bed or matrix of the whole vegetable kingdom. 

 This bed, or the greater portion of it, whether it consists of the manure 

 of the barn-yard and the homestead generally, and carried out and 

 spread upon it, or of the plants that grow upon it and fall down and 

 decompose and rot where they grow, form what is called the putres- 

 cent or organic manure of the "soil. No plant can germinate and 

 grow healthily and mature perfectly without it, and a considerable 

 portion of it too. They are called putrescent because they are sub- 

 ject to perish and decay, and organic' because they are the remains 

 of organized substances, animal and vegetable, that once possessed 



