200 [ASSEMBLT 



Wheat- grasg^ to which our wheat belongs, hus five' species, which 

 are indigenous to England. They bear the name of, 1st. Sea 

 Rushy Wheat grEiss ; 2d. Creeping Wheat grass, or Couch grains, 

 a common pest everywhere ; its root-stooks, however, contains a 

 large share of nutritive matter ; it is gathered in Naples in large 

 quantities for horse feed ; it is called Dog's grass, Quitch or 

 Quick, or Couch, No. 5. 



Fibrous- rooted, or Bearded V^^hiv'tt grass, differs essentially from 

 No. 2; grows two feet higii, and gives a large supply of spring 

 herbage. 4th. Crested Wheat grass, native of Scotland, the roots 

 consist of several long, strong, woolly fibres, suited to sandy soils^ 

 grows 32 to 18 inches high, flowers in the second week of July, 

 seed ripe about the last of Augus.t. 



• 5. Dwarf Sea, Wheat grass — Annual, growing on a sandy sea 

 coast, flowers in June and July, root many long, do\?ny members, 

 stalk rigid, wiry, branching from the bottom ; two or three inches 

 high, leafy, very smooth and polished, erect or decumbent. 



Alanson Nash, the chairman, said that- he had been highly 

 pleased and instructed with the reading of the paper prepared by 

 the secretary. The subject of wheat v.as one of the highest im- 

 portanceto the people of the Untied States ; he had a work in his 

 posession which was -a publication by the ancient Romans, in the 

 days when that nation had overrun the northern parts of Africa, 

 from the Atlantic ocean to the Red sea, and from the Mediterra- 

 nean to the Deserts of Sahara, as well as Arabia and Persia to the 

 Indus, the wl^ole of Asia Minor, Europe, to and beyond the Da- 

 nube, Including Austria, Gerrcaiiy, and perhaps Sweden and Nor- 

 way. 



The work which he spoke of ahowed what were the number of 

 Roman princes belonging to this empire. Each province had a 

 consul and governor or president to govern, who established a 

 banner or flag emblematical of its natural productions. The whole 

 of Africa was shown in the days of the Roman Emperors, to have 

 been the great grain-growing country of that nation. The banner 

 for this country contained three large ships, loaded with wheat, 

 coming from Africa to Rome, wlnle the goddess Ceres presided in 



