THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



it to be a remedy for nearly all the ills that land 

 is heir to, first-rate for hay in summer and grazing 

 in winter, and the greatest discovery yet made for 

 improving good land and renovating exhausted 

 soil. We give our opinion reluctantly, because it 

 is almost a personal matter with Mr. Iverson to 

 dispute the merits of his grass, and because we 

 fear we offended him, or came near it, in declining 

 an agency for the sale of it about a year ago. 

 And really, it is unpleasant to fight the battles 

 of the public with every individual who has an 

 enthusiastic admiration for his own stock, grass, 

 grain, pea, machine, implement or invention. 

 Still we must try and do our duty, which is in this 

 instance to say that we attach no peculiar value 

 to the Ceratochloa Brcviaristata, or Rescue Grass 

 of Mr. B. V. Iverson of Columbus, Georgia. 



The price of the seed, $5 per peck, with an 

 obligation on the part of the purchaser to raise 

 none for sale, is too much to pay, and it creates a 

 monopoly to which we object decidedly, and which 

 no farmer should desire, if really anxious for "every 

 farmer in the South to possess and cultivate" it, 



2. "Four years" is time enough to establish, 

 by disinterested testimony, some of the merits 

 of this grass, and though a diligent reader of 

 the Soil of the South, the Southern Cultivator and 

 the Alabama Cotton Planter, we have seen no testi- 

 mony of the kind, so that the "experience" of 

 others seems not to have endorsed Mr. Iverson. 



3. The grass is an annual: and we hold that 

 none of that family of grasses can be invaluable, or 

 very valuable even, as the seed have to be sown 

 every year, or have to seed themselves. In the 

 first case rye is as good a grass as we .can get, 

 (or oats further South), and will grow quite as 

 luxuriantly, on similar soil, as Rescue Grass, and 

 corn sown for soiling must be infinitely better' and 

 capable of producing more green meat on inferior 

 soil. Wheat is well known to be among our most 

 hardy winter plants and to grow as rapidly, in 

 favorable seasons, as any other. It makes very 

 good pasture for sheep and calves, and when very 

 rank in growth, and the land is not liable to poach 

 from the treading of heavy cattle, it is sometimes 

 improved by grazing them on it. But nobody 

 expects it to grow " as fast as millet or lucerne," 

 and if the Rescue Grass does we cannot see how 

 "in very rich ground" growing "in the fall, 

 winter and spring," it shall reach a height of only 

 " three or four feet." If it does no more than 

 that rye will match it, at a cost of 80 cents per 

 bushel, and only the labor of sowing the seed, for 

 it may be put in with the last working of the corn, 

 against $20 per bushel for the Rescue Grass. 



Even cheat or, chess, growing spontaneously on 

 good land, will make fair hay, and under favorable 

 circumstances attains as great height and luxuri- 

 ance in our latitude as Mr. Iverson's grass reaches 



in the warmer and earlier climate of Georgia. In 

 the second case, if left to seed itself it cannot 

 be grazed, or cut for hay, in summer, because 

 if it is it will make no seed, and so we lose 

 the advantage of the pasturage or the hay. 



That it will yield from four to six, on an average 

 five, tons of excellent hay per acre, after the stock 

 have been withdrawn the first of June, will hardly 

 be credited by those who know how slowly any of 

 our valuable grasses or grains reach a good height 

 after having been grazed to that period. If any 

 are so credulous we beg them to look at this 

 statement: The straw of wheat weighs about 

 twice as much as the grain * and a maximum crop 

 for an acre may be safely assumed at 40 bushels or 

 2,400 lbs., the straw of which would be 4,800 lbs., 

 and five feet high at that, to say nothing of the 

 stubble. But 5 tons are 11,250 lbs. or 1\ times 

 more, and full \\ times more than grain and straw 

 combined ! A pretty fair yield when we remember 

 that the stock had been only taken off the first of 

 June, and that " this grass grows in the fall, winter 

 and spring only.''' Assuming June to be a sum- 

 mer month in Georgia, which we know it was 

 once, for we tried it, and assuming that Mr. Xver- 

 non cuts hay in July, it follows that the Res- 

 cue Grass has one curious property not stated 

 in the circular, viz: that it will make 5 tons 

 per acre and reach a height of four feet 

 in a month without growing at all. 



Mr. Iverson's assertions prove too much, and 

 until the laws of vegetable growth are changed, as 

 in the case of Jonah's gourd, we cannot believe 

 that any annual plant will keep cattle well, sum- 

 mer and winter, improve the land, and seed itself. 

 The blue grass sods of Kentucky cannot do it. W e 

 do not mean to say that Mr. Iverson does not 

 believe all he utters about his grass ; he may be 

 an enthusiast, and enthusiasts believe every thing 

 about their idea of the moment. But we mean to 

 to say that we do not believe one-tenth of what he 

 has told the public. So much we have a right to 

 declare, without just cause of offence, and without 

 being construed to attack any one's veracity. It 

 is certainly fair to allow Mr. Iverson to speak for 

 himself, as we have done by publishing his circular 

 at the head of our strictures. 



For all the purposes that we conceive our cor- 

 respondent to have in view, we believe that rye 

 sowed in the early fall or, preferably, at the time 

 of laying by the corn land that is not destined for 

 Wheat, will answer abetter purpose, and we do not 

 hesitate to advise him and every one else, to sow a 

 quantity of it proportioned to his occasions for 

 winter and spring grazing and for summer soiling, 

 than which latter, nothing will better pay most 

 of our Virginia farmers. 

 P. S. Since writing the above we have seen Mr. 



^British Husbandry, vol. 2, p. 154. 



