n 



feiCHAED FEO:fSCHER^S AtMAJfAC ANl) (3-AEt>EN MANUAL 



will mature seed. It has become natu- 

 ralized in limited portions of Texas, 

 Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and 

 perhaps other States . It is a very pretty 

 grass in all its stages ; and especially so 

 when the culms, two or three feet high, 

 are gracefully bending the weight of the 

 diffuse panicle with its many pedicelled 

 flattened spikelets, each an inch or more 

 long and with twelve to sixteen flowers. 

 I would not, however, advise sowing 

 this grass on poor land with the expec- 

 tation of getting a remunerative return. 

 It tillers abundantly under favorable 

 conditions. 



Rescue Grass. 



JAPAN CLOVER 



{Lespedeza Striata.) 



Japan Clover. 



There is now so much enquiry about 

 this plant, so much confusion, lack of 

 knowledge and confounding with or 

 mistaking for it another worthless na- 

 tive species, and also the same errors 

 in regard to a small genuine clover, 

 that it is deemed proper to "give some 

 correct information on the subject. 



HISTORY. 



To botanists this plant has been 

 known tor many generations in its 

 native habitat in China and other 

 eastern parts of Asia. Finding its 

 way to Japan it encountered congenial 

 climate and soil, and rapidly spread 



over the entire country occupying all 

 waste places, which it has continued 

 to possess and improve for much more 

 than a century. Here as on the con- 

 tinent, it was of dwarfish habit and 

 received a name indicative of the fact. 



Finally a few seeds, arriving in the 

 United States, germinated, contested, 

 a few feet of soil with other native and 

 exotic plants that had long pre-occu- 

 pied the land. 



It gained strength and increased in 

 yield of seed till becoming somewhat 

 abundant, it commenced its westward 

 invasion, simultaneously extending its 

 conquests northward and southward, 

 firmly holding all conquered territory. 

 Since 1870 its strides westward have 

 been immense. It now extends from 

 the Atlantic seaboard across the Mis- 

 sissippi, and its out-posts are pushed 

 far towards the western border of 

 Texas. 



Denuded, soil-less hill tops, sandy 

 plains, gravelly slopes, bottoms and 

 banks of washes and gullies, pine 

 thickets, open woods, fields, dry and 

 damp soils, all seem as if specially 

 created for its home. It seizes upon all 

 with equal facility. 



It maintains its dwarfish habit on 

 sands, .gravels and other spots too poor 

 to produce any other vegetation, densely 

 covering the surface with its green robe 

 and affording delighted live stock with 



