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II. — Account of the Tussac Grass (Dactylis cespitosa) yrou iny 
on Peat Bogs in the Fcdkland Islands. 
[Frotn Dispatches of Lieut. -Govertior Moody to Lord Stanley.^ 
There is another indigenous grass of inestimable value, which 
deserves the particular attention of every person connected with 
grazing and sheep-farming even in England, but more especially 
Scotland and Ireland. I allude to what is here called " Tussac." 
The tussac is a gigantic sedgy grass, of the genus Carex. I mea- 
sured the length of the blades, and found them to average seven 
feet in length, and three quarters of an inch in width : some, in 
favourable situations, are longer, and if cultivated wilh care they 
would probablv flourish slill more vigorously. The jjlants grow 
in bunches close together, and as many as 250 roots spring from 
one bunch. In old plants the decayed roots of successive shoots 
form a cushion of dry entangled fibres, which raise the bunch 
Irom the ground. This cushion sometimes attains to a great size 
and height, so that a person standing in a patch of old tussac may 
be quite sheltered and concealed. The cushion is dry and in- 
flammable ; and where the wild cattle and horses have com- 
pletely destroyed the plants by eating down to the very roots 
inclusive, these lumpy accumulations of decayed fibres are left 
encumbering the ground with a multitude of hummocks, easily 
removed, however, by fire. 
The grass growing in large tufts upon the high base of decayed 
roots resembles, at a distance, a diminutive grove of thickly- 
clustered palms; and from the dark green and luxuriant appear- 
ance given to the smaller islands clothed with tussac, the richness 
of tropical vegetation is forcibly recalled to the memory. 
All the other species of the genus Carex are described in 
botanical works as coarse and rank, and by no means adapted for 
fodder, but it is very different indeed with this species. That it is 
sweet-flavoured, tender, and most nourishing, is evident from the 
avidity with which all animals feed, and the rapidity with which 
they fatten upon it — cattle, horses, sheep, and pigs alike. For 
about three or four inches the roots are very agreeable to man, 
being crisp, and of a sweetish nutty flavour, very much resembling 
the heart of the palm-tree in the West Indies, which is called the 
mountain cabbage. 
There is an island close to the settlement which is fringed with 
the tussac grass for a breadth of about 200 to 300 yards, the re- 
maining portion being wiry coarse grass and moss on wet land. 
Lean cattle turned upon this island become fat in two or three 
months ; and the miserable old horses that return from the cattle- 
VOL. IV. c 
