776 Supplement to the "Tropical Agriculturist,' li 1895. 
is where brick and lime rubbish lias been thrown 
and trodden down hard. It will also grow in 
the poor soil beneath the shade of trees where 
other grasses grow but scantily, if at all. When 
required for lawns a sufficient quantity can e isily 
be collected from the roadside and waste places. 
The piece of ground intended frr lawn .should be 
well dug, and then made perfectly level and 
smooth. Drills should then be drawn over it a 
foot apart, in which little pieces of the roots 
should be planted out at the distance of h;ilf-a- 
foot from each other, and the ground afterwards 
watered occasionally, till the grass has become 
thoroughly established. In Bengal further water- 
ing will be unnecessary, but in the upper 
provinces irrigation during the hot season is 
indispensable, as otherwise the grass would soon 
become scorched up and perish. 
" A more expeditious and very successful plan 
of laying down a lawn, sometimes adopted, is 
to pull up a quantity of grass by the roots, chop 
it tolerably fine, mix it well in a compost of 
mud of about the consistency of mortar, and 
spread this out thinly over the piece of ground 
where the lawn is required. In a few days the 
grass will spring up with great regularity over 
the plot. " 
Eragrostis abyssinica, Link. — A slender annual 
grass, known in Abyssinia as " Teff, " " Tcheff," 
or " Thaff. " It is indigenous to the higher lands, 
and is cultivated for the sake of its grain all 
over Abyssinia. There are several varieties, some 
depending on the height of the plant, others on 
the colour. According to Richard, there are 
green, white, red, and purple Teffs. The graiu 
crop requires four months to ripen, " In good 
years it returns 40 times the seed, and only 20 
times in bad years " The flour of teff is very 
white, and produces bread of excellent quality. 
Seed of teff was obtained by Kew in 1886, and 
distributed to numerous establishments in India 
and the Colonies {Kew Bulletin, 1887, January, 
pp. 2—6). The plant prefers light sandy soils, 
and adapts itself even to the most sandy ; it 
then produces slender wiry stems, and supports 
a large weight of ear. The grain is reported to 
make " an excellent fine hay " iu British Guiana, 
and to mature iu six or eight weeks from the 
time of sowing. " For this purpose teff is well 
worth cultivating. It is cleaner and brighter 
looking than any other grass, and is readily eaten 
by cattle and horses.'' The reports from Austra- 
lia and India are equally favourable. The value 
of this plant for fodder purposes is exceptionally 
high. Its chief merits in this respect are the 
short time it takes to mature, and its suitability 
to thrive in dry, sandy regions, where few other 
grasses would flourish equally well. 
In the Proceedings of the Agri.-Hort. Society 
of India, 1888, p. lxxii., the following note ap- 
peared : — " The seed of this new cereal was received 
from Kew, and was distributed as noted in the 
Proceedim/s of May last. Mr. C. C. Stevens, Com- 
missioner of Chota Nagpore, now writes : ' You will 
remember having given me a small packet of Heed 
of " tcheff " for experiment. I gave it to the Rajah 
of Jashpore, who had it sown in two or three 
different localities. He has not given me very 
precise information, but I understand that the 
eeed was treated exactly like the ordinary rainy 
weather crops. He tells me tha he has saved 
some three or four seers of seed, aud that the 
hill people have taken a fancy to the crop. The 
best thing he can do is to keep the seed and *ow 
next season. He has sent me a bundle of plants, 
which I -shall forward to you when a favourable 
opportunity occurs. The straw or gra>s is 4 feet 
or 4j feet iu length, and smells sweet.' An only 
about 2 ounces of the seed was supplied to Mr. 
Stevens, the results obtained appear \ery satis- 
factory for the first 6eason, and if the crop i$ 
found suitable there should be no difficult} iu 
establishing it next season." 
A very full account of teff is given by Mr. J. 
V. Duthie, F.L.S., in the Report of the Saharuupur 
Gardens for the year 1888, pp. 11-12. The 
following extracts are of interest : — 
"Seeds of this grass were sent to us last year 
by the Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew, with 
the remark that it was an Abyssinian food-grain 
which might prove useful fir India. I ha\e a 
bad opinion of it as a food-grain, but think 
better of it as a fodder, and have therefore classed 
it under the head of ' fodder plants.' 
"Teff consists of two varieties, one with white 
seeds and the other with red seeds. The white- 
seeded kind is said to be cultivated in Abyssinia 
during the dry season and the red during the 
rains. We tried the two kinds here during both 
seasons, and found, as stated, that the white an- 
swered best for the dry season and the red for 
the wet. 
" Three sowings were made of the two kinds — 
the first in March, the second in April, and the 
third in July. The March sowing of the white 
variety gave an out-turn of grain at the rate of 
660 lbs. per acre, while the red variety, sown on 
the same date, only resulted in an out-turn of 
17 lbs. per acre. The crop was cut in the beginning 
of May, but sprang up again into a second growth 
and yielded a cutting of grean fodder early iu the 
rains. The note made regarding the weight of 
this cutting has, unfortunately, been mislaid, 
and I am therefore uuabie to give its approximate 
weight per acre. 
"The April sowing of the white variety pro- 
duced no grain, and the sowing of the red variety 
made at the same time ouly returned 11 lbs. of 
grain per acre. Both kinds, however, gave a 
good crop of fodder in the middle of July, the 
red variety producing 11,022 aud the white 7,436 
lbs. per acre. The cutting was in a half-dried_ 
state when weighed, or the figures would have 
amounted to a greater total. 
" The July sowing of the white variety gave 
au out-turn of 11 lbs. of grain per acre, and the 
sowing made on the same date of the red resulted 
in an out-turn of 82 lbs. per acre. These out- 
turns may be looked upon as failures, and 
conclusively prove that teff is of no great account 
for cultivation on the plains as a food grain. 
A cutting was made across a section of the two 
plots of this July sowing iu the middle of August, 
and weighed collectively in its green state, aud 
as a result gave an out-turn of 16,000 lbs. of 
green fodder per acre. The out-turns of 3,116 
and 2,676 lbs. noted in the statement for part 
of this plot really mean the out-turn of dried 
hay, as the fodder was weighed in the beginning 
of October, aud was then crisp and dry. A rainy 
season sowing of teff may, therefore, be looked 
Upon as capable of producing 16,000 lbs, of greeji 
