74 
On t/ie Tussac Grass. 
spray, carefully weeding between the plants as they grow up. 
When they are 9 inches or a foot high, the suckers might be sepa- 
rated and planted out 3 feet apart in rows. As the plants grow 
large, every alternate row should again be planted out, in order to 
leave room for a man, cow, or horse to pass between the rows 
without treading down the plants. To raise from seed appears a 
more uncertain and much slower method than that of planting out 
suckers from the finest plants. 
With regard to the value of Tussac as a fodder, particularly for 
winter, I will mention a few facts that may be interesting. It is 
green all the year round; frost does not appear to injure it, nor 
does snow cover it ; it is a soft, succulent, and highly nutritious 
grass, extremely relished by all animals — cattle, horses, sheep, 
and pigs. Cattle and horses fatten upon it in a surprising man- 
ner : they eat the whole blade down to the root, which, by the 
way, they relish most. They will eat old dry Tussac thatch from 
off the roofs of houses. The tracks of wild cattle and horses in 
the Falklands extend from many miles inland to the exposed sea- 
beaten points covered with Tussac. There is an island in Berkeley 
Sound that can be reached at low water from the main. The area 
of this island is as nearly as possible 800 acres, and there are 
about 400 acres of Tussac grass upon it : the remainder of the 
island is thinly covered with coarse wing-grass and rush on peat- 
bog — a very wretched piece of pasture land, affording scarcely 
any nutriment. Last autumn I caused the Government herd, 
consisting of 800 head of cattle and about 60 or 70 horses, to be 
placed on this island for the winter months. A small house is at 
the extremity of the ford, in which I placed a guard. The animals 
remained on the island nearly six months, with no other nutriment 
than what the island afforded. Towards the end of that time they 
began to get poor, and the Tussac was eaten down to the roots. 
By next autumn it will have entirely recovered. I am compelled 
to let the cattle graze the Tussac from want of hands and means 
to make different arrangements, nor do I consider any other plan 
a matter of sufficient moment in the present state of the colony to 
warrant the outlay requisite to economise properly this invaluable 
food ; but in England, where labour is cheap, I would act dif- 
ferently. The cattle could be folded in an adjoining paddock to 
the field of Tussac, and fed over the wall or fence by men cutting 
the Tussac in bundles, commencing with the upper row and pass- 
ing regularly through the field ; by the time they had cut the last 
row, the first would be ready to cut again. Had such a plan been 
adopted by me in the island I mentioned above, I feel confident 
the 400 acres of Tussac would have amply supplied the 800 head 
of cattle for twelve instead of six months. It is incredible how 
much is injured l)y being trodden down and eaten too close ; and 
