IN TENNESSEE. 215 



soil to which they are addicted, and their uses where such are known. 

 They are, furthermore, in my private collection, and I intend to con- 

 tinue my labors. The description of the plants are given according to 

 the excellent works of Prof. A. Gray, A. W. Chapman's Flora of the 

 Southern United States, Torrey's Botany of the State of New York. 

 The wood -cuts illustrative of a few genera of grasses are from Gray'e 

 Manual. Some information I have also derived from the Agricultural 

 Reports 



Two families of plants, the Graminese (grasses and cereals) and 

 Legurninosse (wild vines, peas, etc.), contribute in such a degree to the 

 support of the herbivores, that all the rest is, for this purpose, almost 

 insignificant. What plants are suitable or not can only be learned 

 from observing stock in pastures, what they eat or reject, when they 

 are in a well-fed condition. 



From a list of grasses given in a former chapter I have selected the 

 most frequent and valuable for the subjoined special descriptions. 



In that portion of the United States lying east of the Mississippi and 

 extending to the Atlantic, there are at present known to exist 287 

 species of the graminese indigenous to the soil. In the territory west of 

 the Mississippi, and extending to the Rocky Mountains, there are 143 

 species, of which only 52 species belong to this region exclusively, 

 ninety-one of them belonging also to the eastern region. So it appears 

 that we have 339 species over this wide domain. About one-half of 

 these are found within the limit of the State of Tennessee. 

 Many of them are valuable for forage, but many are worthless 

 or noxious to the agriculturalist. 



