Introductory to American edition. 



(By George C. Watson, of Philadelphia, Pennsyl- 

 vania; resident American agent of the company, and for 37 years 

 actively engaged in the grass-seed trade in Europe and America.) 



While the American people have learned much on agricultural 

 subjects in the past two hundred years they have by no means 

 kept pace with the world's progress in some lines, and this is the 

 case conspicuously in their ignorance of the uses of the higher 

 types of Natural Grasses. Intensive culture in the older countries 

 of Europe, notably intheNetherlands, Great-Britain, 

 France and Germany, has given a closer knowledge of the 

 higher types of the cultivated grasses and clovers, enabling the 

 farmers to draw larger returns from the soil with a smaller expen- 

 diture of expense and energy. This does not imply that the Ame- 

 rican is any less intelligent than his European confrere; but only 

 that the matter has not been brought forcibly to his attention. 



Before coming to America at the age of twenty-two, the writer 

 of these lines had been brought up at the plough-tail, and subse- 

 quently served an apprenticeship of nine years in the seed-busi- 

 ness, five of which were devoted almost exclusively to grasses, 

 enabling him to have an exceptionally good grasp of that line with 

 its sources of supply in all parts of the world, supplemented by 

 careful study of the leading authorities, test-work on the sample- 

 grounds, and diligent following up of the experimental stationwork 

 then lately established by the government. After a residence of 

 twenty-three years in America, and an active participation in the 

 grass-seed business during all of that period, he is more than ever 

 of the opinion that the European farmer is ahead of the American 

 in his appreciation of the values of the various species and types 

 of Natural-Grasses and their allies. 



With a sincere desire to remedy this defect in American practice, 

 negotiations were opened with Joseph Theodore Baren- 

 brug — of Barenbrug, Burgers & Co., Arnhem, the 

 recognized European specialists in this line — to write a treatise 

 on the subject. After much persuasion this labor was finally under- 

 taken, and the following pages are the result. 



This treatise is not to be taken in the deeply scientific light of 

 the Hortus Gramineus Hoburnensis— the foundation of our subse- 



