NEW (}R ASSES FOR OLD STATIONS. 301 



lulapted to tlio most valuable grasses. There the soil sutlers less 

 from freezing, and is less exposed on account of the absence of 

 snow. 



New Grasses for New or Old Stations. — Although the above 

 heading may be "new " the subject is now old, for as long ago 

 as 1843, in a prize essay for the Xew York Agricultural Society, 

 J. J. Thomas said: "The groat deficiency in the number and 

 varietv of our cultivated grasses has been long felt bv intelligent 

 cultivators; and a more complete order of succession, alTordcd 

 by a mixture in pastures, is an important requisite. That among 

 the number of nearly two hundred si)C('ics indigenous to the 

 Northern and ^Fiddle States, there are some which may jirove 

 equal if not superior to any we now (jultivate, scarcely admits a 

 doubt. Some of our native grasses have been tested in Great 

 Britain, and found valuable." 



The late I. A. Lapham, a sagacious botanist of Wisconsin, in 

 the State Agricultural ]{eport for 1853, wrote: "The import- 

 ance of introducing new grasses, and elTorts to improve those 

 already cultivated, cannot be over-estimated. It is jiot at all 

 certain that we have the best kinds, nor that those we have are 

 brought to the greatest degree of perfection. Doubtless they 

 may be improved as well as fruits and live stock." 



A little later, in 1858, Dr. Thurber, in the Ainrrinin Aijriciil- 

 tiififtf, forcibly expresses a similar view: "A dozen sorts, prob- 

 ably, cover nineteen-twentieths of all the cultivated meadow 

 laud from Maine to Texas. It can hardly be supposed that so 

 limited a number meets, in the best manner possible, all the 

 wants of so great a variety of soil and climate. This is one of 

 the pressing wants of our agriculture. A single new grass, that 

 would add but an extra yield of a hundred pounds to the acre, 

 would add millions of dollars annually to the productive wealth 

 of the nation." 



J. 11. Dodge, in the Keport of the Department of Agriculture 



