GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 



No vegetable products of the soil are of such transcendent import- 

 ance to mankind as are the grasses. Included in the family of grasses are 

 all the cereals that furnish the important bread-grains upon which the 

 largest number of the population of the globe subsists. The animals, 

 domestic and wild, that furnish meat for the sustenance of the most civil- 

 ized portion of the human family feed upon grasses. Indeed it is difficult 

 to see how the people of our planet could survive the entire destruction 

 of the grass family. 



The vast importance of grasses in the creation of wealth is difficult 

 to estimate. The annual production of hay in the United States accord- 

 ing to the eleventh census was 6(5,831,480 tons, grown on 52,948,797 acres. 



A. Fragment of culm of wheat with sheath-node, 

 somewhat bent. B. Longitudinal section of the 

 same; sk, sheath-node; hh, point of insertion of the 

 sheath. C. Andropogon; the sheaih is removed on 

 the left side in order to show the culm-node, hk; 

 sk, sheath-node. 



having a farm value, taking the average of four years, of $514,602,096. 

 There is no crop that surpasses the hay crop in value. The corn crop, 

 one year with another, runs nearly equal in value. The wheat crop fol- 

 lows with an annual value for a full crop of $425,000,000. This is followed 

 by the cotton crop, the value of which rarely exceeds $300,000,000. But 

 in this estimate of the value of grass to the country no account has been 

 taken of the value of pastures. In area, the pasture grasses occupy at 

 least two acres to one of meadow grasses, and the value of their annual 

 production cannot be less than that of the meadows. This will make the 

 total approximate value of the grass crop $1,029,204,792. The making of 



