BOTANY. 105 
see each other at a distance of ten feet. The soil and climate 
were evidently very favorable to it. During the last ‘six or 
eight years, the wild oats-have been eaten down so closely by 
cattle, that in many places they have been killed out. They 
are propagated from year to year, not by the roots, but by the 
seeds, many of which fall into cracks in the earth, where they 
lie in safety until the rains come, when the ground closes up 
and the grain sprouts. The earth cracks in the summer, in 
many parts of the state; and in places where the wild oats 
grow, the position of the cracks of one year may be traced the 
next season by the position of the stalks of the grain. 
The wild oat grows on hill and plain, and furnishes a large 
part of the wild pasture of the state. It is wholesome, nutri- 
tious, and palatable for cattle. Much of it is cut for hay. The 
amount of grain which it furnishes is small in proportion to 
the quantity of straw, and it is never threshed. 
After the wild oats, in importance to the herdsman, comes 
the “burr-clover,” so named from a spherical burr, about a 
quarter of an inch in diameter, which it bears in clusters of 
three. This burr-clover is found in all the settled parts of the 
state. Cattle do not like it when green; but after it dries, 
the burrs fall upon the ground, and are picked up by the cat- 
tle, while the stranger is astonished at seeing them eating and 
keeping fat on what appears to him to be bare earth. On ex- 
amining the surface of the ground, he will find that it is cov- 
ered with the dry stalks and burrs of the burr-clover. The 
bloom consists of three very small yellow flowers. It is said 
that the stalks of this clover take root whenever the joints 
touch the ground. 
The alfilerilla (Zrodiwm cicutarium) is another indigenous 
nutritious herb of much importance to the herdsman. It is 
succulent, sweet, hardy, bearing clusters of spikes or pins an 
inch and a halflong. These spikes have given it the name of 
pin-grass; and the resemblance of its leaves to the geranium 
has suggested the name of “ wild geranium,” by which title it 
is also known to some persons. It has a large root, which it 
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