1835.] 



Observatio7is on Nuth Grass. 



143 



In the preceding observations I have endeavoured to 

 make your readers acquainted with the existence of an evil 

 probably unknown to most of them, and have no doubt, the 

 sufferers will be most thankful for any hints for its remo- 

 val, which those who take an interest in agricultural mat- 

 ters may be able to communicate. It is however necessary 

 to add, that this grasshas one important redeeming quality ; 

 cattle eat it, and large quantities are daily exposed for 

 sale here, as food for them, and could it be raised in less 

 valuable soil, it would, perhaps, be thought a useful enough 

 plant : but growing as it does, in the finest land in the coun- 

 try, to the injury of every other, and possessing such facili- 

 ties of extending itself, its total destruction would perhaps 

 be an unalloyed benefit to the country. Before however 

 coming to this conclusion and commencing a war of exter- 

 mination, it would be necessary to ascertain its advantages 

 as well as its disadvantages ; whether on any occasion, it 

 has been the means of saving the cattle of the country dur- 

 ing dry seasons, by producing a regular crop when other 

 less deeply rooting grasses had failed. If this has happen- 

 ed, it will be requisite in the first instance to provide a sub- 

 stitute, and then the sooner it is totally destroyed the 

 better. Examining the matter in this way, we will perhaps 

 be led to the discovery, before it is too late, that so far from 

 b«ing an unalloyed evil, that it is in fact a boon compared on 

 these districts by the hand of a bountiful Providence,willing 

 and doing all things for our good : knowing much better than 

 we do, our real wants, and often conferring blessings, when 

 we in our short sighted wisdom and philosophy, are repin- 

 ing at them as curses. Let us always bear in mind the 

 well known example of the woodpeckers in the parks about 

 London, that were doomed to unspairing destruction, as 

 the destroyers of the trees, which, they were in truth, the 

 most indefatigable enemies of the real destroyer; ^ a cater- 

 pillar that was hatched in cracks and other decaying parts 

 of the trees, thence, carrying destruction in all directions. 

 A fact not discovered, until there was scarcely a wood- 

 pecker left, and then, only in consequence of the much 

 more rapid decay of the trees after than before that event. 



These remarks are not intended to prejudge the question 



