TITE STORY OF A BLADE OF GRASS. 
9 
from this universality of growth grass derives its name, 
as will be proved by Chapter 
III. ITS NAME. 
The word “ grass ” means simply that which grows. 
The Greek ypoia-ns, or yptxcrns ( anglice grass), must be 
rendered gramen in the Latin, and gives the idea of 
something sprouty, verdant, lusty, and herbaceous— par 
excellence “ grass.” In the Gothic, it is gras ; in Anglo- 
Saxon, gpa y; German, grosz. In the Anglo-Saxon 
form the more precise meaning is, to grow, to sprout; 
applied to grass by the common method of converting 
generals into particulars. Thus, we get by a slight 
transition, to the Latin crescere, to grow; and hence to 
cress, simply a sprouting herb— quod in agris ubique 
crescit, “ that which grows in every land; ” grass, if you 
will, the universal source of verdure. Junius obtains the 
A S grces from growan , and certainly from one of these 
two we have the word green; the designation of the 
colour of grass, and of the cheerful, everyday serviceable 
garment of nature. 
IV. ITS USES. 
All our corn plants are grasses; so a blade of grass is 
a proper emblem of utility, and of the physical basis of 
all civilization. Our bread is made of the seed of cereal 
grasses; our cattle browse the herbage of pasture grasses; 
the culture of cereals and the preservation of domestic 
cattle mark the progress of man from barbarism to indus¬ 
trial enterprize, from a degraded subsistence on the 
precarious crumbs of life, in abject dependence on spon- 
