TARRYTOWN LETTERS.— IV. 



BY A. B. TARRYER. 



MORE ABOUT GRASS MRS. TARRYER GOES TO THE CONNECTICUT FARMER'S MEETING WITH HER KNITTING- 



WORK AND GETS SOME NEW-OLD MATTER TO TELL HER BOYS. 



--st/;5^HERE is now a growing curi- 



osity about grass-seeds. 

 They do not reproduce 

 individual plants pre- 

 cisely and radically as 

 roots do. Seeds vary a 

 little b y degeneration 

 year by year according 

 to their environment, but 

 that gives opportunity 

 for selection and makes 

 life more interesting and hopeful for the vigilant 

 cultivator. If we care for the exact roots of a grass 

 it is only necessary to see what we want in the 

 broad page of the world's surface, and propagate 

 that. Though seeds are lighter, nicer and easier 

 of transportation than grass-roots, it is easier also 

 to be mistaken and get cheated with seeds. This 

 liability increases the chances of variation beyond 

 what is pleasant sometimes; so Mrs. Tarryer be- 

 lieves that people should save their own grass- 

 seeds, when they have any right good ones. 



She went down to the Annual Farmers' Meeting 

 of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture at Birming- 

 ham, in December. It is a sort of a feast of the 

 passover for her. Having been born in the Nut- 

 meg state, and living several years while she was 

 young, in Rhode Island, she meets many old friends 

 and acquaintances among those antique board- 

 around teachers, and she likes nothing better in 

 the whole year than to take her knitting-work and 

 sit among a parcel of grey-headed old farmers and 

 hear them talk. 



Since young scientists, fertilizer-men, grangers 

 and their wives have begun to muster strong at 

 these meetings, along with whatever local gardeners 

 and rural politicians are attracted to the annually 

 changing base of operations, these grand yearly 

 gatherings have become doubly interesting. 



Secretary Gold is a veteran caterer for the in- 

 tellectual farm life in the new theology to be 

 called the mother of gardening. He devoted a 

 whole forenoon to roses, to the great astonishment 



of by standers. He always manages to have a 

 fast and lively programme, which he drives through 

 like a valuable steer team bound home along a 

 rocky and bushy road. There is plenty of time for 

 discussions, and a free question-box to invite them. 

 The talk gets pretty hot sometimes, but farmers 

 have a native dignity and love of order (each being 

 a little king in his own right), so there are .never 

 any rows, such as we hear of in almost every other 

 sort of meeting. Latterly Mrs. Gold brings in 

 music after each act ; this empties our minds of 

 deleterious matter, furnishes a soft packing for 

 what is best worth saving, and a fresh basis for 

 storage. So we go on through a protracted jam of 

 mental fodder, which completely turns our livers 

 over, so to speak, and sends us home with enough 

 to think of for a year. 



When Mrs. Tarryer found Charley Potter, the 

 grass- seed grower of Prudence island, was give^i 

 a choice place in the bill of fare for showing how 

 he cleans his fine grass-seed for market, she was 

 bound to be there and see him do it, so as to be 

 able to tell her boys how it is done. 



Her fixed idea is that women are the mothers of 

 industry and that nothing goes right which they 

 don't have a thoughtful hand in. More women are 

 of the same opinion than are always willing to own 

 it, which is just as well as long as they think so, for 

 we are often moved to best advantage by powers 

 we are least conscious of. 



Mr. Potter is a bright, plain farmer, tilling his 

 400 acres of rented land according to ancient re- 

 cipes, with cattle, horses, sheep and hogs. He has 

 a number of specialties besides that of growing the 

 fine " peasant " agrostis seed, known by the trade 

 name of " Rhode Island Bent," and counterfeited 

 by common tall "Red-top" — now coming to be 

 more of a grain than a forage-plant. 



Fine agrostis is nearly "as old as the hills." 

 Varieties of it are scattered in thousands through- 

 out the north and probably in the south temperate 

 zone. "British" botanists, in sorry league with 

 city seedsman, the rack-rent landlord and the skin- 



