AMERICAN! AGRICULTURIST. 
59 
ways be plenty of shoots close to the ground 
equally young and growing as those at the 
top. 
-— cnag'g.yWd,- mn rr— - 
GRASS. 
The following is condensed from the ex¬ 
cellent address of Gov. Wright, of Indiana, 
at the recent New-York State Agricultural 
Exhibition: 
After some general remarks on the rela¬ 
tion of man to the earth, the honorable char¬ 
acter of agricultural labor, and the general 
order of creation, Gov. Wright proceeded to 
speak of grass, as having received far less 
than its proper share of attention. No crop, 
he said, approaches so near a spontaneous 
yield, and none yields so large a profit. The 
hay crop of the United States in 1850 was 
over 13,000,000 tuns ; that for 1855 he esti¬ 
mated at 15,000,000, which was worth $150- 
000,000, while the whole cotton crop is val¬ 
ued at only $128,000,000. Of this crop more 
than one-half is produced by the four States, 
New-York, (which yields one-fourth of the 
whole,) Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. The 
grass crop, which is used for pasturing, is at 
least as valuable ; so that this single herb is 
worth annually over three hundred millions 
of dollars. 
The qualities of grass vary with different 
latitudes—some being adapted to wet, others 
to dry soils—some being more nutritious 
than others, particular kinds being specially 
adapted to the production of milk, and others 
again being mainly useful for fattening cat¬ 
tle. Like all other vegetable and animal pro¬ 
ducts, grass is susceptible of improvement 
by culture, and will repay a much greater 
degree of care than is usually bestowed upon 
it. There are 215 kinds of grasses culti¬ 
vated in Great Britian ; probably half that 
number might be found growing sponta¬ 
neously in this country. In France the 
meadows and pastures constitute about one- 
seventh of the cultivated lands ; in England 
three-fourths ; in the United States they do 
not probably exceed one-third in the best 
grazing States, and one-eight in the others. 
Much land is abandoned to weeds which 
might profitably be devoted to the culture of 
grass. Wherever there is a large supply of 
lime in the soil, and a clay subsoil, grass will 
grow luxuriantly. The Silurian hills on the 
borders of our western waters, and the 
mountain limestone regions are also well 
adapted to its growth, while they can not 
compete with the sandstone and drift lorma- 
tions in the cultivation of wheat and other 
cereal grains. With proper attention those 
districts adapted to the growth of grass 
might become the wealthiest portions of the 
Republic. 
We shall always find superior stock in 
those districts where the cultivation of grass 
is most carefully followed. This is clearly 
proved by the examples of Great Britain and 
Holland, as well as Jamaica, where the cul¬ 
tivation of a single kind of grass has in¬ 
creased beyond computation the value of 
the trade and commerce of the island. Blue 
grass has done for Kentucky what turnips 
have done for Flanders, and portions of Eng¬ 
land and Scotland-not only arrested the old 
process, but restored the soil, and brought 
large profits to graziers. Along the banks 
of the Merrimac, grass that fifty years ago 
was considered a great evil, has within the 
last twenty years been regarded as equal il 
not superior to any other variety for hay. 
Similar favorable changes have been made 
in the south, and in every portion of the 
country where the attention of agriculturists 
has been directed to the subject. Some per¬ 
sons are active in the introduction of foreign 
grasses ; but our indigenous grasses should 
first receive attention. We have an im 
mense variety of which the great mass of our 
farmers are as yet almost wholly ignorant. 
The alarm that prevails upon the occurrence 
of drouth, of early frost, or of anything that 
threatens particular crops, shows the im¬ 
portance of studying carefully the adaption 
of particular crops to special soils, and of 
modifying our mode of culture to each emer¬ 
gency. Man has a great many foes to con¬ 
tend with in the destructive agencies of na¬ 
ture, and it is only by study and care that 
his labor can be made the most productive. 
We need more general attention to farming, 
less collection of people in cities and villages 
and more scientific devotion to agricultural 
pursuits. According to the census of 1850, 
one-eight of our entire population live in 
cities whose population is over ten thou¬ 
sand ; and at least one-fifth of the population 
are residing in towns, villages and cities. 
Taking into view the extent of our territory, 
the sparseness of our population to the 
square mile, the cheapness and fertility ol 
our lands, and the facilities for exchanging 
all commodities, and productions of skill and 
industry, the history of the world shows no 
instance in which the people of a civilized 
nation exhibited such a preference for city 
and village life. When our population shall 
have become two hundred millions, one- 
half of the people will be crowded in cities, 
towns and villages—unless the popular sen¬ 
timent of the nation, after overcoming the 
general aversion to manual labor, and subdu¬ 
ing the hot thirst for professional and mer¬ 
cantile pursuits, shall awaken in the Ameri¬ 
can mind a strong love for rural life. One 
great object of Agricultural Societies is to 
incite a love for agricultural pursuits and 
diffuse a knowledge of valuable scientific 
truths among agricultural communities. 
Bread from Grown Wheat. —For the ben¬ 
efit of our neighbors who have sprouted 
wheat, and also a mercy to the miller, please 
insert in your paper the following recipe for 
making bread from grown wheat: 
Place the flour in a pan under the stove, 
or where it may become hot and keep so for 
five or six hours, until thoroughly dried 
through. Knead the dough harder by work¬ 
ing in more flour, and bake slower and long- 
ger, so as to dry out the moisture, and you 
will have light, dry, white bread. A little 
alum will improve it, if the wheat was badly 
sprouted. h. j. c. 
[We have seen samples of bread, made 
from new, grown wheat, according to the 
above recipe. The bread was free from 
clammy moisture, and of good quality.] 
CORN-CARRYING ON THE RUSSIAN STEPPES. 
In order to judge at what cost the most 
important of those exports are thus brought, 
and in order to enable an inquirer to predict 
with any approach to certainty what could 
be done under the pressure of the most ex¬ 
traordinary temptation from without, let us 
leave the sharp stones, deep mud, or clouds 
of dust of Odessa, and examine the tracts 
along which those long line of bullock wag¬ 
ons come creeking from more northerly di¬ 
rections. I have said that a vast belt of 
Steppe girdles this coast. We are upon a 
Steppe. The prevailing color, as far as the 
eye can reach over the immense plain, is a 
scorched brown. The intense heat and 
drouth have reduced the Steppe to this con¬ 
dition, and far beyond the horizon line, and 
away, verst upon verst, is the same dreary 
looking and apparently waste expanse. Not 
that it is all flat—hills, barren and rugged, 
diversify the line, and add to its difficulties, 
in dry weather considerably, in wet incal¬ 
culably. For look at the ground on which 
you stand. You are on one of the roads, as 
they are termed. Elsewhere, a road, good 
or bad, means something which has been 
made —a line, upon which has been gathered 
material for binding and clasping, and below 
which there is some kind of draining; bad 
or good, the road is, as compared with the 
adjacent land, dry, compactand elastic. Dis¬ 
miss all such ideas from your mind, or rath¬ 
er drag your limbs for an hour behind that 
corn-wagon, and such ideas will disappear of 
themselves. Dead and helpless seems that 
wo-begone track, creaking and drawling over 
which comes the bullock wagon—ail wood, 
and built precisely as wagons were built a 
thousand years ago. The driver sits in 
front, occasionally lashing the gray bullocks 
more by way of form than with any idea of 
hastening them, and his massy beard hangs 
down over a species of censor, whence aiise 
fumes of an unsavory kind. But it is not in 
luxury, or in imitation of his eastern neigh¬ 
bors, that the peasant keeps this odor-breath¬ 
ing vessel under his nose—the contents are 
an abominable mixture for greasing the 
wheels of his wagon, and by which you may 
trace it through many a yard of tainted air. 
Why he has placed the reeking vessel be¬ 
tween his legs I know not, unless it be to 
remind himself more forcibly of the neces- 
sity-of an operation, without the incessant 
performance of which his clumsily built cart 
would be on fire in four places at once. Con¬ 
trast this wretched machine with the well 
contrived, iron mounted cart of the German 
colonist, a few miles hence. But on goes 
the wagoner, jolting and creaking along the 
unhelpful soil, and singing some of those 
old airs in which, rude as they are, there is 
some melody, or saying prayers to one or 
other of the multifarious national saints. On 
he goes, and so he and his predecessors 
have gone since corn was grown in Russia. 
Ricketty carts, knotted rope harness, drowsy 
bullock, wretched roads—so crawls the loaf 
toward the Englishman’s table.—$. Brooks, 
a Year in Russia. 
Nature is limited, but fancy is boundless. 
