EARTH COVERINGS 
281 
coloring in summer and winter. A little far- 
ther back from the marsh, often quite close 
to it, are those dryer lands that grow tall 
grasses and weeds which are sometimes cut to 
make what is called ‘‘ salt meadow hay.” They 
do not make a strikingly beautiful growth, 
though they wave quite prettily in the wind, nor 
is the color of them in any way remarkable. 
Still farther back lie the pasture-lands and 
meadows where the ordinary field-grasses grow, 
and these are, perhaps, the most common of all 
the earth coverings. 
There are some thirty-five hundred species 
of the grass family, ranging from the tall stalk 
of the bamboos to the small, almost moss-like 
buffalo grass of the plains. In the picturesque 
landscape they all have their place, not because 
they are different members of a botanical 
family and show slight variation in form and 
growth, but because they are all masses of fibre 
and color that carpet the open spots of the 
globe and lend to universal beauty. Nature 
did not, perhaps, grow them so much for pict- 
uresque effect as for use. They are the pro- 
tectors of the soil from denudation by rains and 
frost. Wherever the surface of the earth is 
left bare, nature immediately starts the growth 
Meadow- 
growths. 
grasses. 
