KENTUCKY BLUE GBASS. 43 



Although Poa Pratensis is kown all over Northern 

 Europe as far as St. Petersburgh 60 degrees north 

 latitude, yet in no part of Europe has the merits 

 of the Poa family been so fully developed as in the 

 states of Virginia, Maryland and the far famed 

 Kentucky Blue grass region, v^hich lies across the 

 middle of that state and covers about twenty counties 

 including on area of 15,000 square miles. This region 

 also extends over several counties in Ohio, but the 

 grass does not seem to flourish so luxuriantly on the 

 Ohio side, although in other counties of Ohio it is 

 said to grow as luxuriantly and form as staple a 

 pasture grass as it does in any part of Kentucky. 

 The cultivation of this grass must have improved 

 wonderfully within the last fifty years. In an ad- 

 dress delivered by Col. Emory to the Agricnltui'al 

 Society of Queen Anne Co., Maryland, in 1822, and 

 afterwards published. Referring to the neglect of 

 cultivating the natural grasses, he remarked: "In- 

 deed, so far are we from promoting the vigorous ef- 

 forts of the invaluable grasses of the Poa class, which 

 by nature as if out of patience seems in her bounty 

 determined to force upon us that we are in the habit 

 of denouncing them (next to the Hessian fly) as our 

 deadliest enemies, and of excercising our best but 

 misapplied skill to extirpate them forever. If- our 

 •neglected flocks of cattle and still more neglected 

 sheep, could be endowed with the power of speech, 

 how eloquently would they defend those friends 

 which give them power enough almost unaided to 

 weather the winter storm, and which came to their- 

 aid in the spring just time enough to keep life and 

 carcass, together. I allude to the grasses commonly 

 called the Blue grass and the green grass. They are 



