1865. f 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
45 
has been formed and has purchased the patent 
for $600,000. There being a “Company,” there 
■will be stock to sell and many people -will be 
sold. Starch sugar is an old story,—making 
cane sugar from it is altogether another matter. 
A Talk About Grass. • • • -Ist Article. 
Several requests have been made for a series 
of articles upon the various grasses in cultivation. 
Although grasses are among our most common 
as well as most useful plants, there is a great 
lack of definite knowledge concerning them, 
and the same grass is in different parts of the 
country known by different names, or the 
same name is applied to very different species. 
The ordinary grasses are readily reeognized by 
farmers, but if asked to describe Red-top or 
Blue-grass in a way that would 
enable another to know them, 
they would find it a rather diffi¬ 
cult matter. The leaves and 
stems ot the different kinds of 
grass are so mueh alike, that it 
is very difficult to give such de¬ 
scriptions of them as would en¬ 
able a person to reeognize them by any pe¬ 
culiarities these present, and we are obliged 
to go to the flowers to find those distingushing 
marks which will allow us to identify the differ¬ 
ent sorts with any certainty. Unfortunately, the 
flowers of grasses are very small, and so unlike 
the flowers of other plants in appearance, that 
they are at first sight rather difficult to under¬ 
stand. Still, with the aid of some enlarged 
Fig. L 
drawings, we hope to 
show the structure of 
the grass flowers, and 
then it will not be diffi¬ 
cult to tr.ace it out in the 
grass itself. Let us be¬ 
gin the study with a 
head of Timothy, which 
can readily be pulled 
out of almost any hay¬ 
mow. The head con¬ 
sists of numerous little 
chaffy bodies, closely 
placed around the stalk; 
these are the flowers. 
Carefully remove a por- 
Fig. 3. tion of them from the 
head and spread them out on a piece of white 
paper. Those which have not been broken 
up in the removal will appear like fig. 1, and 
consist of two chaffy scales, folded together 
and very mueh compressed or flattened, fur¬ 
nished upon the back with bristly hairs, and 
each terminated by a 
stiff bristle or awn. 
Fig. 1 is what is cal¬ 
led a spikelet; the two 
scales are glumes. It 
will be notieed that 
one of these glumes 
is outside of, and folds 
over and covers the 
edges of the other, 
and that the inner one 
isattaehed to the min¬ 
ute stalk a little high¬ 
er up than the other, 
as will be seen in examining the real flow¬ 
er, though it can not easily be shown in the 
drawing. In deseribing a grass, the glumes are 
spoken of as lower and upper. In order to see 
what is inside of the glumes they must be care¬ 
fully separated. This is best done by means of 
two needles, fixed in 
small wooden han¬ 
dles, to answer as 
pickers. In examin¬ 
ing a fresh grass it is 
easy to spread the 
glumes apart, but the 
dried specimen must 
be soaked awhile in a 
little water; this will 
make the glumes fiex- 
ible and allow them 
to spread as in o, i», 
fig. 2. Within the 
glumes are two other smaller scales, c, d, fig. 2, 
of a more delicate te.xture, ■which are cal¬ 
led palecB. In the figure they are shown de¬ 
tached, or lifted out of the glumes. The paleae 
have the same position with relation to each 
other as the glumes; that is, one is outer and 
lower, and the other inner and upper. The 
upper one is almost always smaller than the 
other, and is usually marked with two lines 
{nerves) running through it, while the lower one 
has from one to several of these nerves. The 
shape and markings of the glumes and paleae 
serve to distinguish species. In the case of the 
Timothy,the bristle-pointed and flattened glumes 
and the delicate small paleae are characters by 
which it is readily recognized. Within the 
paleae arc the pistil and stamens, which will be 
described presentl}'. Examine now a spikelet 
of Red-top, fig. 3. Here 
we have a similar ar¬ 
rangement of parts, 
though they differ in 
sh.ape and relative size. 
The lower and upper 
glumes, a, and 6, are 
without the bristle- 
points and hairs of the 
Timothy, while the pa¬ 
leae are more unequal in 
size, the lower one, c, 
being much longer than 
the upper one, d .—Fig 4 
gives the parts of a Red-top flower all separated 
from one another; a, 6, lo-^verand upper glumes; 
c, d, lower and upper paleae, while the stamens 
and pistil are shown above. In the dry speci¬ 
men it will be difficult to make out the stamens 
as they are delicate and readily broken. They 
are shown in figs. 2 and 3, at e, e, and eonsist 
of an oblong case or anther, supported by a 
very slender thread or filament. The anthers 
of the Timothy are light purple and make the 
head quite showy when in flower. The sta¬ 
mens are also shown in fig. 4. The pistil, as 
seen in fig. 4, is a little egg-shaped body, which 
is the ovary and will become the grain, with 
two feathery appendages, the styles, proceeding 
from its upper portion. These styles are also 
seen in figs. 2 and 3.—In fig. 4, a couple of 
small scales are shown just below the stamens 
and pistil, which in a popular account of grass 
structure may be left out of consideration. The 
examples here given are among the simplest 
forms of grass-flowers; if the description of 
them seems dry, the looking out of the parts in 
the real specimen will be found interesting. 
Eoad Scraper—R. I. Bent or Bine Grass. 
An active firrmer friend of ours in Rhode Isl- 
land, often urged to furnish for the Agriculturist 
some of his practical notions, writes: “ Rather 
than write, I would like to mix up a kettle of 
hot paint and apply to the wood work of my 
new road scraper—or see whether a pair of sled- 
runners can be got out of a “ crook,” I cut 
yesterday—or rub over the hams and shoulders 
again—or pack the sausages in snow—or ride 
up to Greene, the sawyer, and stir him up 
about that stuff for a portable fence—or sharp¬ 
en the wood saws—or drive the oxen to the 
village for shoes—or forty things beside. Ac¬ 
tion forever! General Grant (God bless him I) 
will find his pastime, after the war, in clearing 
up a stump or Canada thistle farm. I’ll warrant. 
My mind will run back in spite of me to that 
road scraper. Let us work it out. 
ROAD SCR.4^PER. 
“There is no patent upon this tool, I believe, 
and it can be built by any one who can make an 
ox-jmke. A chestnut or oak log, of 2 feet or so 
in diameter and 6 feet long, is worked out in 
the manner indicated in the cut, with a twist, 
gaining about a foot in the six feet length—so 
that when the tongue, which is inserted diagon¬ 
ally, is in the yoke ring, the right-hand end will 
meet the ground like a plowshare, while the 
other falls away to the rear with a twist like a 
mould board. It is faced with an old saw plate, 
and is good for raising the road bed of a new 
road, or for smoothing the ruts of an old one. 
Large staples are inserted on the share or 
tongue to receive handles. It is a combination 
of scraper and plow.Since writing the 
above I have applied a hot coat of gummy, 
cheap linseed oil and redding to the wood 
work, and mean to give it two more. 
E. I. BENT IDENTICAL WITH KT. BLUE GRASS. 
“The fiirras of Rhode Island have a grass 
which they call “R. I. Bent.” It is highly 
prized as a pasture grass upon lighter soils, 
making a compact, permanent and productive 
sod, under very ordinary conditions of fertility, 
and is used for lawns. I have studied it among 
Naragansett fanners for four seasons past, 
using my eyes and asking lots of questions. 
Chas. L. Flint, in his ‘Grasses and Forage 
Plants,’ classes it with Red top—for which I 
can find no foundation. All the information ! 
can collect from my neighbors, points to a very 
common grass, of habits and appearance identi¬ 
cal with what Mr. Flint calls ‘ Green Meadow 
Gras.s, June Grass, Common Spear Grass, Ken¬ 
tucky Blue Grass, &c. {Poapratensis)' and says it 
grows all over the Northern States. This grass 
is a great favorite with me. I find it in all hand¬ 
some roadside or pasture sod in Rhode Island 
and Connecticut, and during a recent journey 
through New-York State I found my old ac¬ 
quaintance in all directions. Near Canandaigua, 
hearing a farmer boasting of a field he had in 
Blue Grass, I -was at some pains to verify the 
familiar matted aftermath under this name. It 
is not easily eradicated from land, nor easily in¬ 
troduced ; that is, if you plow an old pasture 
or meadow containing it, and take off a crop or 
two of grain or potatoes, manuring lightly, seed 
enough will be left in the land to bring in the 
