234 
Canadian Agrimlture. 
a height of about six inches, supplies in its hips a much- 
relished food in the fall of the year to horses and to the prairie 
chicken ; and the composite plant, Artemisia frigida, known 
as " pasture sage," and the general appearance of which 
resembles that of wormwood, constitutes almost the sole winter 
food in some localities. Eurota lanata, the " white sage," 
a plant allied to our spinach and goosefoot, is abundant on the 
tops of dry hills in the southern plains. 
The grasses and sedges marked with an asterisk in the 
foregoing lists, are held to possess special value as forage 
plants. Hierocldoe horealis, which is the holy grass of Scotland 
and Northern Europe, having been formerly used for strewing 
on the floors of churches at certain seasons, is very general on 
the prairie, and possesses a pleasant, lavender-like fragrance 
which it imparts to the prairie hay ; the Red Indians plait it 
into the form of a border to surround the birch-bark mats they 
are so expert in making. Professor Macoun told me that, on 
high dry grounds, the best pasture grasses met with are : 
Andropogon scoparius, Boriteloua oligostachya, Hierocldoe borealisy 
Poa ccBsia, P. tenuifolia, Sporoholus heterolepis, Stipa coniafa, 
S. spartea (the best of all), S. viridula, Tritimm caninum, and 
Vilfa cuspidata. The good forage grasses of the salt marshes- 
are : Glyceria airoides, Spartina cynosuroides, S. gracilis, and 
Triticum repens. Horses left to themselves find their chief 
summer food in Carex aristata of the salt marshes ; but as this 
dies with the appearance of frost, the horses then betake them- 
selves to the higher lands, and graze on Stifa spartea in the 
winter. No pastures are more valuable in summer than those 
of the salt marshes, and working horses when set at liberty- 
make straight for them. 
The prairie herbage varies greatly with the locality ; in that 
part of Manitoba north-west of Portage-la-Prairie the hay 
is very coarse, containing large quantities of Spartina cynosu- 
roides, mixed with Calamagrostis Canadensis and Poa serotina- 
A western horse accustomed to finer hay will scarcely touch 
this, while the ponies of the neighbourhood eat it with avidity. 
On the drier prairie this kind of hay is not seen, while other 
varieties are abundant. Where ponds abound, much of the hay- 
consists of certain species of Carex, Poa, and Calamagrostis. 
If the soil is rich and not too moist, the Carices disappear, and 
grasses of the genera Dantlionia, Elymus, Ilierochloe, Triticum, 
and Vilfa, with numerous Itosaceie and Leguminosoe, appear in 
great profusion. The hay in river valleys is almost wholly 
Carex aristata, Calamagrostis Canadensis, and Poa serotina p 
this is also the hay of the mixed forest and prairie country.* 
* ' ]Maiiitol);i and tlie Great North- West.' By John IMacoun, M.A., F.L.S. 
