76 
On the Tussac Grass. 
easily expatiate on the extreme beauty of its vegetation, covering 
rocky storm-beaten promontories and small islands with a dark 
rich verdure, always reminding me of tropical luxuriance; but its 
importance in a practical point of view is what I am desirous of 
making fully known to your Lordship and to all interested in agri- 
cultural pursuits. I should wish to send a large quantity of Tussac 
seed to England every season, but the settlers here are as vet far 
too few in number and far too busy to spare time to collect it. It 
appears to me it would be money well laid out if one of our lead- 
ing Agricultural Societies were to send here an intelligent person 
to remain the six summer months collecting seed. He would be 
absent from England about a year, and the whole expense would 
not exceed 300Z. He should bring either a wooden or iron house, 
10 feet square, with a small stove; three tons of coal; provisions, 
such as biscuit, pork, coffee and sugar ; gunpowder, shot ; warm 
clothing, bed and blankets ; a folding table, two stools, and a mili- 
tary canteen. More things would be an incumbrance. DetdefF, 
whom I have mentioned above to your Lordship, usually goes from 
the settlement on foot, and takes only a good dog and a stick. He 
is absent about two months, sleeps under a rock, lives on wild geese 
and rabbits, and occasionally a calf, and invariably returns in the 
best possible health. A person from England might, however, fix 
his little residence on a small Tussac island close to the settlement, 
and at present reserv'ed by Government, and in one summer collect 
such a quantity of seed, with Dettleff's aid, as would more than 
cover his expenses, to say nothing of the advantage of having a 
good authority at home, that could be referred to at any moment. 
I have given a close attention to this grass for four years ; and 
though at first it may appear a dreamy kind of enthusiasm, I do 
not hesitate to say, that should it be found on trial to succeed in 
the United Kingdom as well as it does in the exposed portions of 
the Falkland Islands, it will raise the annual income of many 
landed proprietors from hundreds" to " thousands." A Tus- 
sac-fed ox is in the finest order here at the end of the winter, 
though never housed or cared for in any way. In the Fahnouth 
Packet and Cornish Herald newspaper, of the 23rd August, 1845, 
I have been shown a paragraph stating that J. Matheson, of 
Lewis and Acbany, M.P., sent some Tussac grass seed, procured 
from the Falkland Islands, to Stornaway, and that Roderick 
Nicolson, tacksman of Colb, has been perfectly successful in rais- 
ing grass from the seed. I should be glad to hear of some of the 
seed being sown in the salt-water marshes near Southampton, 
l^ungeness. Isle of Sheppey, the fens near the Wash in Lincoln- 
shire, the banks of the Thames, and south shore of Essex round 
to Harwich — in short, anywhere near the sea, preferring, as a 
general rule, marsh and peat-bogs to sand-hills or downs, al- 
