PRELIMINARY REMARKS. xv 



kind. This would include the cereal grasses (wheat, 

 barley, rye, oat, maize, &c.), and of those two pro- 

 minent facts are worthy of notice : i st, They are an- 

 nuals ; and 2d, They are never found in a wild state, 

 unless where met with as solitary and temporary pro- 

 ductions from seeds of chance distribution. Also it 

 would include rice, millet, and other grasses which 

 have acquired local or occasional value in cultivation. 

 Such, for instance, are some species of Fanicum, also 

 Setaria,Zizania aguatica, Stipapennata,Poaflmtans, &c. 



Second. Those grasses that are cultivated for their 

 foliage, and used for pasture or forage purposes. It 

 is with this very important section we deal in detail in 

 the following pages. 



Third. Grasses such as those of the Saccharum or 

 sugar-cane family, from the expressed juice of which 

 sugar is manufactured. 



Fourth. Those grasses considered by the agricultu- 

 rist as weeds, but which, while of little or no value as 

 producers of food for man or beast, are yet extremely 

 useful in the economy of nature as colonisers and 

 pioneers to vegetation of a higher grade. The grasses 

 which come under this section fulfil most useful func- 

 tions, — some as land-formers, slowly changing marsh 

 or morass into land that will bear ameliorative pro- 

 cesses, or contributing largely towards fixing and ren- 

 dering solid the mud-flats that accumulate about the 

 mouths of rivers on low coasts. Others act as land- 

 protectors — sand-binders — spreading a dense and 

 rapidly-formed network over the surface of the loose 



