Bureau of Agbioultuee. 239 



Bringing all our characters together, we may say 

 that a grass is a plant with a jointed, and generally, hol- 

 low stem, narrow parellel veined leaves, known as 

 blades, and small flowers assembled in spike-like heads 

 or loose, widely branched clusters known as panicles. 

 Grasses may mature and die in one season, in which case 

 they are known as annuals, of which corn and Hungarian 

 millet are examples, or they may last from year to year, 

 as in the case of blue grass, when they are known as 

 perennials. They are wind pollenized. 



Grasses occur everjrnrhere on the globe where man 

 can live in anything like comfort. They are to be found 

 well up toward the north pole, barley and oats growing 

 as far north as 70° north latitude. The best of grasses 

 for grazing, you will remember, are of rather northemly 

 distribution, or, in other words, cool weather plants, 

 making their best growth during early spring, like our 

 blue grass, and again in fall after the heat of summer is 

 past. As we go southward from Kentucky, the turf- 

 forming grasses become less common, and their place is 

 taken by the tall, rank-growing sorghum, canes, etc., 

 which make their growth during the heated periods of 

 the year. 



Kentucky's reputation as an agricultural State is 

 due to her pastures, and to the horses and cattle which 

 her pastures produce. And because of the excellence of 

 the pasturage in some parts of the State, her reputa- 

 tion extends even outside the limits of the IJnited States. 

 Foreign countries not infrequently send men to Blue- 

 grass Kentucky to buy horses and to study our methods 

 of raising such stock. 



Yet if Blue-grass Kentucky were omitted as a part 

 of our territory, there would be fully four-fifths of the 

 State left which could scarcely be called a grazing coun- 

 try at all. The making of Blue-grass Kentucky and the 

 reputation of the whole State thus depended very largely 

 on one little grass plant, the Poa pratensis of botanies, 

 the Kentucky blue grass of the whole world. 



I do not wish to be understood as implying by this 

 that Kentucky blue grass is a native product. This 

 seems to me doubtful. It occurs throughout much of the 

 world, and is plaimed to be native to European countries. 



