16 THE GRASSES 



greatest pests the farmer ever experienced. A gentleman 

 in New Orleans, importing some exotics from Cuba, found 

 a delicate sprig of grass in a pot, aod thinking it might 

 possibly be some rare plant, set it out in his garden, and 

 thus was introduced the terrible scourge of the South, the 

 Cocoa grass, and from this small start, it has spread and 

 diffused itself over half the country. The same want of 

 knowledge brought from Europe the seeds of the cheat, and 

 it will ever remain as a curse to the wheat grower. Our 

 lands are everywhere covered with grasses of various kinds, 

 but few are the farmers who can tell the kinds most sought 

 by stock in grazing. But a careful perusal of the following 

 pages will disclose the fact, that, of the many varieties in- 

 digenous to the State, but few have a sufficiently nutrient 

 character to make them valuable or desirable. 



Farmers should be able to make important discrimina- 

 tions, and when they find a fertile soil covered with noxious 

 weeds or useless grasses, they ought to be able to eradicate 

 them, and substitute such as will improve the value of the 

 land and also add to its beauty. 



A case has been brought to my notice, in which the value 

 of such knowledge proved quite profitable. A gentleman 

 of Davidson county, some 25 or 30 years ago, owned a large 

 and fertile tract of land. He became impressed with the 

 value of blue-grass, and bought at one time fifty bushels of 

 blue-grass seed, and scattered it over a woods lot containing 

 75 or 80 acres of rich, black limestone land. That woods 

 lot became the pride not only of the farm, but of the neigh- 

 borhood. It proved a blessing, for many years, to his horses, 

 catfle and sheep, and when, by the exigencies of the hard 

 times, he was compelled to sell his land, it was divided into 

 small tracts and put up to the highest bidder. That blue- 

 grass lot was sought by all the bidders, and at last was 

 knocked down at more than double the price per acre of any 

 of the other lots, though it was, aside from the grass, of no 

 more value than the remainder. 



