TARR YTO n N LETTERS. 



67 



ning plow declare these various forms of agrostis 

 "no use to agriculture." But yeoman and " states- 

 men," farmers, graziers, gardeners and the con- 

 servators of the land among all free races of men 

 for ages, know the finer varieties of agrostis, un- 

 der one name or another, as famous bottom-grasses 

 for green meadows, solid sward for pastures and the 

 sunniest fine verdure in open door-yards and lawns. 

 " R. I. Bent" is "a good mixer," as they say out 

 west, and so it lives in spite of neglect. But Mr. 

 Potter is about the " last of the Mohicans" to grow 

 this seed — singularly clean of others — for sale. 



This island seedsman needs no naturalist to tell 

 him that the turfing habit in a grass (like many 

 other precious habits in vegetable and animal life), 

 though fixed, sfi/l needs perpetuating in the conditions 

 which produced its 7'irtiies^ to preser7'e them. Hence 

 he keeps sheep to trim, tread, manure and weed 

 the green sward of his seed-pastures and meadows, 

 as a long line of " Bent" growing ancestors did be- 

 fore him. Mr. Potter is that rare kind of a fine 

 grass-seedsman whose exact science is inherited 

 and traditional. He is actually living in the pas- 

 toral age whereof devoted city lawn-makers desire 

 to preserve lovely turf-eniblems ! He made a very 

 pretty appearance on the little opera-house stage ; 

 seemed as much at home there as if it had been his 

 own barn-floor ; and as he was wise enough to bring 

 Mrs. Potter with him, so as to satisfy all reasonable 

 social curiosity, the thousand questions fired at 

 him by the audience only spoke the interest growing 

 everywhere respecting grass-seed. The staff-writer 

 of an eminent metropolitan journal (which gave an 

 excellent report of the meeting) was so warmed up 

 Dy the excitement of the occasion, as to confess, in 

 private, that he wasn't aware before that grass 

 comes from seed. Such are the victories of peace ! 

 Mrs. Tarryer thought the whole scene worthy of 



a great histori- 

 cal painting, 

 but our dab- 

 sters are not yet 

 up t o such a 

 radical renais- 

 sance of agri- 

 culture and gar- 

 dening. She finally begged a willing young woman 

 of her acquaintance to make the accompanying 

 sketch of one of the sieves, and the stand (a sim- 



ple frame with four legs would hold the rollers just 

 as well), used by Mr. Potter on the platform. His 

 bags of seed, in the chaff, looked like the dust of 

 home-lot hay-mows. Passed through two sieves — 4 

 by zl feet — the first wth a mesh of 24, the second 

 with 28 spaces to the linear inch, a product of 

 golden-yellow agrostis seed — fine, light and silky — 

 was the result. " Heavy Bent seed means dirt and 

 foreign seed," said Charley Potter. " That last sieve 

 will take out white clover." 



So much unclean seed is grown that trade is 

 forced, at present, to advocate "mixtures," even 

 for the choicest artificial grass-plats. Every ob- 

 serving seedsman knows better, but is helpless in 

 the general stupidity. Till the public awakens to 

 the folly of its ordinary practices, small lots of 

 choice seed in the hands of great seedsmen will only 

 be lost in their " mixtures," like nice cream in co- 

 operative dairying. Mixed seed for weedy meadows 

 and pastures is not so entirely reprehensible, but 

 to mingle " Potter's Bent" with anything else for 

 pure domestic purposes would be to waste it. 

 "Sow my seed alone, " he said. The finest sward 

 for lawns everywhere is the purest one of whatever 

 grass composes it. Mixtures of seed render a per- 

 fectly uniform sward as nearly impossible as the 

 seedsman can make it. 



The little rig pictured does not represent the com- 

 plete horse-power thresher and separator Mr. Pot- 

 ter has adapted to his considerable business at 

 home, but the sketch gives a sufficiently accurate 

 notion of the simple contrivances used on the stage, 

 and all that is needed by beginners in saving small 

 lots of seed. Out of careful experiments widely ex- 

 tended, we may hope to grow an American grass- 

 seed production for use and trade in the near future, 

 whereof we shall not be ashamed. 



Mrs. Tarryer was delighted with every feature of 

 the meeting, but she was seen asking a grey-beard, 

 if we were not " rather previous in paying so much 

 attention to microscopic things — fungi, bacteria and 

 so forth — while not a man of you could have crossed 

 the street into Birmingham Green and give the 

 right names to one of our common grasses !" Her 

 idea is that instead of sowing seed for sward of 

 whose sward-making qualities we know nothing, 

 we should save seed from the grass that has shown 

 itself able to produce precisely the sward we ap- 

 prove. There is a world of " service-reform " in it. 



