^ LETTERS FROM ALABAMA, 
137 
pointed. The leaf is thick and leathery, but some- 
what liable to split if forcibly unfolded. The 
cattle eat the tips of these leaves too, and spoil the 
elegant regularity of their form. Indeed, in sum- 
mer, the poor creatures are hardly beset to procure 
a due allowance of proper food ; they are turned 
adrift into the forest to browse on the twigs and 
shrubs, or to pick what they can get. It is nof 
here as in our own country, or as in the north, 
where during summer the fields, the lanes, and 
even the roadsides, are profusely clothed with 
verdure, affording an ample supply of grateful 
food to the farmer’s stock, and where the sleekness 
of their skins and the plumpness of their forms 
sufficiently attest their prosperous condition. But 
here grass is almost unknown ; and nothing more 
strongly marks the distinction between this region 
and the one I have left, than the almost total 
absence of that green carpet in the fields, on the 
edges of the woods, on the borders of the streams, 
on the sides of the roads, in the corners of the 
fences, and in every place where one is accustomed 
to see it. There are shrubs, herbs, and weeds, in 
abundance ; but none of them can supply the place 
of that soft, rich, velvety verdure, whose hue so 
delights the eye. It is true there is a native grass, 
which gives a good deal of trouble. One of the chief 
employments of the field-slaves during summer is, 
by hoeing between the rows of cotton, to destroy 
the grass ; and one of the most common complaints 
among the planters is, that the grass is getting the 
upper hand of them. But it is a singular species, 
called Crowfoot-grass {Cynodon dactylon]^ bearing 
four or five diverging fingers or ears at the top of 
the stalk ; a gaunt-looking plant, with sparse 
