FOR THE SOUTHERN STATES. 83 
very rapid. It is tender, very sweet, | Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and 
and stock eat it greedily. It makesalso | perhaps other States. It is a very pretty 
a good hay. It produces an immense | grass in all its stages; and especially so 
quantity of leaves. On loose soil some | when the culins, two orthree feet high, 
of it may be pulled out by animals graz- | are gracefully bending the weight of the 
ing it. I have seen it bloom as early as | diffuse panicle with its many pedicelled 
November when the season had favored | flattened spikelets, each an inch or more 
it, and no grazing or cutting were per- | long and with twelve to sixteen flowers. 
mitted. Oftener it makes little start I would not, however, advise sowing 
before January. But whether late or | this grass on poor land with the expec- 
early starting, it may be grazed or | tation of getting a remunerative return. 
mowed frequently, until April, it still | It tillers abundantly under favorable 
will mature seed. It has become natur- | conditions. ° 
alized in limited portions of Texas, 
JAPAN CLOVER. 
(Lespedeza Striata.) 
There is now somuch enquiry about | far towards the western border of 
’ this plant, so much confusion, lack of | Texas. 
4 ae ey) ee 
knowledge and confounding with or Denuded, soil-less hill tops, sandy 
mistaking for it another worthless na- | plains, gravelly slopes, bottoms and 
tive species, and also the same errors | banks of washes and_ gullies, pine 
in regard to a small genuine clover, | thickets, open woods, fields, dry and 
that it is deemed proper to give some | damp soils, all seem as if specially 
correct information on the subject. created for its home. It seizes upon all 
HISTORY. with equal facility. 
To botanists this plant has been It maintains its dwarfish habit on 
known for many generations in its | Sands, gravels and other spots too poor 
native habitat in China and other | toproduceany other vegetation, densely 
eastern parts of Asia. Finding its | covering the surface with its green robe 
way to Japan it encountered congenial and affording delighted live stock with 
climate and soil, and rapidly spread | delicious nutritious grazing for four to 
over the entire country occupying all eight months of the year. But on richer 
waste places, which it has continued | Soil it doffs the dwarf and dons the tree 
to possess and improve for much more | Style justifying the American name of 
than a century. Here as on the con- | “bush clover;” sending its long tap root 
tinent, it was of dwarfish habit and | deep down in the subsoil and its stem 
received a name indicative of the fact. | two to three feet up into the light and 
Finally a few seeds, arriving in the air, with its many branches thickly set 
United States, germinated, contested, | With leaves, inviting tooth and blade. 
a few feet of soil with other native and It attains here on rich or medium soil 
exotic plants that had long pre-occu- | protected from live stock a magnitude 
pied the land. that could not have been imagined by 
It gained strength and increased in | one seeing itin its far eastern home. It 
yield of seed till becoming somewhat | takes possession not only of unoccupied 
abundant, it commenced its westward | land and pine thickets but grows among 
invasion, simultaneously extending its | sedges, grasses, briers and weeds, com- 
conquests northward and southward | pletely eradicating many species of 
firmly holding all conquered territory. | noxious grassesand weeds. It subdues 
Since 1870 its strides westward have | even broom grass and holds equal con- 
been immense. It now extends from | test with Bermuda grass; in some local- 
the Atlantic seaboard across the Mis- | ities one yielding, in other localities the 
sissippi, and its out-posts are pushed | other succumbing, while in other spots 
