M£ Tropical AGRicmtufctsf , ^ i, my, 
IN L 1 IAN GEASSE3. 
All who have read Mr. Syrnond .' articles on the 
grasses of the Madras Pitsidency. and on Army 
Animal Management, which appeareu in the Quarter y 
Journal of Vet&rmary Science ,m India, wm be glad 
to have them in the more complete and covenient 
form in which they are now published. In the present 
work the most important grasses of the whole In- 
dian Peninsula are desci ibed, and figured with special 
reference to their use for fodder, and though, of 
course, a complete list of the Indian grasses cannot 
he expected, it will, we think, be found that all 
those known to be of value are included. Of course 
such a work must be in the main a compilation from 
other writers, but it needs a wide knowledge of the 
subject to make the compilation satisfactory, and we can 
congratulate Mr. Symonds on his success in this respect. 
It appears that the most important of the fodder 
grassess of India is the Cynodon Dactylon, known in this 
part of India as hariali grass, and in the north as dhoob. 
It is the same as the couch grass of Australia and 
America, and grows well in all pcirts of India. This 
grass is treated of at considerable length, and many 
useful details are given regarding its cultivation. Per- 
haps the most interesting part is a quotation from a 
report made by Major-Ueneral Ottle^ upon some ex- 
periments which he made at Vellore on its cultivation 
on a lairiy large scale. The soil was first very care- 
fully prepared and manured, care being taken to re- 
move all the roots of the corra (Cyperus Hotundus), a 
most troublesome weed, which is oiten found grow- 
ing along with the hariali, and which can hardly be 
eradicated after the latter grass has been planted. In 
the ground thus prepared the hariali roots were 
planted in furrows, and the whole was then laid out 
in beds, so as te allow of irrigation from wells in the 
compound. At the end of about a month the first 
crop was ready for cutting, and by the judicious use 
of irrigation — once or twice a month — it was found 
that eight crops could be obtained in a year. Each 
crop yielded on an average two tons to the acre, so 
that it is well within the limits to say that 50 tons 
per annum can be obtained from 5 acres of ground 
properly attend to, and this yield is sufficient to ren- 
der the crop a profitable one, even when we take 
into account the very heavy first cost of preparing 
the ground. On the produce of his five acres, General 
Ottley was able to keep eight or nine horses and 
sheep, and to supply hay for the racing studs and 
livery stables at Madras ; while during the last 
Burmese war, at a time when there was not a blade 
of grass in the country, he supplied all the hay need- 
ed for the Horse Artillery sent to Rangoon. Ex- 
periments made at the Sydapet Farm on a plot of 3 
acres in 1868, showed that a fair crop could be 
obtained even without irrigation, for from this plot 
8 tons 13 cwt; of hay was obtained during the year- 
This hay sold for E360, while the cost of curing it 
was only R105. The hay made from hariali grass is 
of an excellent quality if care is taken to carry on 
the drying properly. The grass ought to be cut im- 
mediately after the flower appears and, according to 
Mr. Cameron of Bangalore, the cutting should be 
done in the cool hours of the day, so that the newly 
mown grass may not be exposed to the intense heat 
of the midday sun, and the drying should take place 
very slowly. But this is evidently a point on which 
"doctors differ,'' for Mr. Bobertson, of Sydapet, gives 
advice which is very nearly the opposite of this, as 
he advises that the grass should he cut in the morn- 
ing after the dew is off it, that it should then be 
left lyiug for an hour or two, and finally be turned 
and tossed about till sunset, for '' it cannot," he adds, 
" be tossed too much during a hot sun." In dry 
weather two days of this treatment should fit the 
)my for being stacked. Our author does not attempt 
to decide between these diverse opinions, and neither 
will we, though we must admit Mr. Robertson's ad- 
vice deems to agree with the best practice at homo. 
A point which is not generally known with regard to 
hay is that it in decidedly advantageous that it should 
heat ol'ghtly after it»a stacked, the fermentation that 
t ikes place in that case improving the quality of the 
bay us fodder, just «i> coarse gi;at>n is unproved by 
fermentation in a silo. ^ But of course care must be 
taken that this heating does not go too far. Mr. 
Bobertson suggests the use of a single row of six inch 
dryin pipes placed about the middle of the stack, and 
leading from the centre to the outside. But drain 
pipes are not things that are usually to be found in 
this country, and they can be replaced by hollow bamboos 
or split palmyra stems, or the stacks may be built 
round a " centre," as is so often done at home. Hay which 
has been well made, attains its maximum value from 
eight to twelve months, and after fifteen months begins 
to deteriorate, and by three years it is uselets for fodder. 
Another very valuable grass is the guinea grass 
(Panicum Jumcntorum), a native of Guinea, but 
thoroughly acclimatized in this country. Not only 
does this grass yield a very large crop of a quality 
admirably suited for feeding horses and cattle, but it 
has the power of resisting the longest severest droughts. 
This was well shown on the Sydapet Farm during 
the last famine. A field of two acres was planted in 
September 1877, and in May 1878 it was perfect brown, 
and to all appearance lifeless, when the heavy rain 
which fell during the cyclone in that month led to its 
immediate revival. Before the third day of the rain 
was over, green shoots appeared all over the field, 
and in two months it yielded a crop weighing 5,56'6 lb., 
followed two months afterwards by a second cutting 
weighing about 12,000 lb. The popular idea that this 
grass requires to be irrigated, and that it should be 
taken up and replanted in fresh ground at the end 
of every two years or so, is situated to be quite 
erroneous. Of course irrigation will increase the yield, 
and any grass which grows so quickly requires an 
abundance of manure. The plants, too, soon become 
too large, and ought to be divided into four with a 
spade by two cuts at right angles through the ceutre, 
three of the parts may then be removed and the 
fourth left where it is. A subject on which Mr. 
Symonds has a very decided opinion is the present 
most unsatisfactory state of the system of obtaining 
grass for horses by means of grass-cutters. In Bengal 
the grass-cutters are men who are regularly enlisted 
and seree for a pension, but in Madras and Bombay 
in the army as well as in private stables, the grass- 
cutters are women who are generally the horsekeepeers' 
wives. All who keep horses know how difficult it is to 
have any real control over these women, and how 
badly they usually do their work, and that there is 
much need for an improved system. In connection 
with this we are glad to see that Mr. Symonds call 
prominent attention to very common error that the 
roots of grass are best for horses. If the the roots 
are young and small they certainly possess a consider- 
able amount of nourishment, but old roots are always 
mixed with the young, and these are not only in- 
nutritious, but are actually hurtful. The following 
directions regarding grass seem worth quoting for the 
benefit of private horse owners, "The grass should be 
brought in dry, laid on a trellis frame, beaten to re- 
move dust and dirt, and it is then fit for use. Per- 
fectly dry grass is not always possible, of course in 
the rains it is impossible, then they should bring in 
20 lb. extra, take every advantage of getting it dry 
keep it two or three days, then beat it and use it 
In very wet weather, when there is continuous rain, 
to keep it would only induce fermentation, but as soon 
as there is a break in the weather, the drying should 
be assiduously attended to, and it cannot be laid out 
too thin." The practice of grubbing up the grass 
with a mamoty is strongly condemned not only on 
account of the number of roots which are thus mixed 
with the grass* but also on account of the destruc- 
tion of the grass ; but this latter objection can hardly 
be maintained in view of the experiments recently 
made at Lucknow, where it was found that by scrap- 
ing the surface, as practised by the natives, an ad- 
vantage of 10,320 lb. per acre per annum was obtain- 
ed over the plan of allowing it to grow, and then 
cutting it with a sickle. These experiments were made ofl 
hariali grass. In conclusion we may call attention to the 
sixt^-lwo admirably executed lithographic pistes of the 
vanous grasses describc.1, which, tanen along with the 
text, faciliate the identificatioti of ench grass, and greatly 
a dd to the value of the book,— Metros Mail, 
