14 
ILLINOIS STATE DAIEYMEN’S ASSOCIATION. 
and seem to think that when they have committed these few seeds to the bosom 
the earth, they have done all that man can do, forgetting that in the fine old meado\ 
in England—which are the envy of farmers elsewhere, and the admiration of tl 
world—not less than thirty different species are found growing in a single sod. ar 
1,100 plants in one foot of surface, while the American seeding will average 175 plan 
grown in the same area of surface. 
There is another cause for the inferiority of our meadows, which, though oft* 
overlooked, is of great importance. This is the number of useless or noxious wee< 
that find place among them. We fear if very many meadows in many sections i 
this state were carefully examined, it would be found that at least one-third of ti 
plants growing in them were weeds of no intrinsic value, which are unnutritiousar 
unpal table to the stock, and injurious to the flavor of the butter and beef. The! 
foreign intruders injure the useful plants by their shade, and rob their roots of tl 
nutriment existing in the soil. If the farmers of this state would rid themselves < 
this nuisance in their grass land, it would add millions of dollars to their incom 
We have seen that there are 6,000 separate species of grass, and we know from tl 
analogies of nature as well as from revelation, that God made nothing in vain. Eac 
species has some special niche, some separate part to play in the grand harmony < 
nature, each adapted for some purpose, or for some soil, or climate, or locality ; an 
yet with the exception of some thirty varieties we are quite unacquainted with’the 
special uses and adaptations. The worst of all is that we are contented with this lac 
of knowledge ; we make no effort to dispel it. Last fall when engaged in profession; 
work, I noticed a tract of lyme grass ( Klymm striatus ), growing on a bank of a rivi 
let, and asked the owner of the land, who had lived on it more than twenty year 
whether his cattle relished it. He said that he did not know; he had never noticed 
and could not tell whether the cattle would eat it or not. He said it had grown the] 
all the time since he had moved on the farm, but never knew its name or what it vn 
good for. He had never even thought whether it had a name or a use. Meadow fe: 
cue is a very common grass in counties bordering on the Hudson river, constitutin 
about one-fifteenth of the crop on the meadows. This very valuable species of gras 
I found growing in Jefferson county, Wisconsin, and while engaged in selectir 
specimens I asked five or six farmers to name it. Not one of them could tell its co: 
rect name, although they had often seen it growing on their farms. 
It is well established, and the farmer will readily acknowledge, that among tl 
few grasses that we know anything about, there is a great difference in their nutriti; 
value. This acknowledgment, however, is made in general terms; but when they ai 
asked to specify the most nutritious kinds there will be as wide a difference of opinio 
as possible. Some will tell you there is nothing like timothy ; others declare tin 
orchard grass is the grazier’s sheet anchor; others cannot make good sweet butte 
without red top; a Kentuckian will claim supremacy for his favorite blue grass 
many New Englanders claim fowl meadow as the king of grasses ; while in Old Enj 
land the primary place is given without hesitation to rag grass. In some parts of tb 
State of Maine, nothing is thought to approach meadow fox-tail. 
This Babel-like confusion of opinion demonstrates clearly enough that we hay 
no knowledge on this all-important subject, and that we rely only upon capricion 
opinions for the settlement of the problem. Chemistry, it is true, has offered its ai 
to us. Analyses of some thirty species have carefully been made. No doubt bi 
these analyses are accurate and correct and reliable. No doubt they tell us truly win 
they alone profess to tell, viz.: the exact amount of nutritive matter in a given samph 
But this, unfortunately, is not a reliable guide in practical feeding. No matter hm 
much nutritive matter there may be in grass if there are mechanical impediment. 1 
such as an abundance of stiff awns to obstruct its reception into the stomach, or i ; 
the nutritive matters contained in it do not exist in such a state as to permit thei 
assimilation by the digestive organs, or if they are mingled with injurious or poisoi: 
ous matters, they might as well not exist at all, as they will make neither meat, nc 
milk, nor wool. There are other ambiguities in the result of chemical analyses a 
applied to grasses. The composition of timothy, for example, is different when grow 
on a sandy soil from what it is when grown on a peaty soil, and this latter conditio 
varies greatly again from what it is when grown on a clay or loam ; so, if it is grow 
in a very wet season, it is very different from the sample grown in a dry season, i 
sample grown upon the sea coast will widely differ from one grown in the interio] 
The same plant, if analyzed when it is going into flower, and again when it is goin 
out of flower, will be found to present as wide differences as though they were plant 
of different species. We must not be understood as undervaluing the chemical ana 
ysis of the grasses. On the contrary, we place the highest value on them and heartil 
wish that we had more of them. In order to make them available for the purposes c 
the grazier something more is needed, and that is actual trial at the manger, of equ? 
weights of the grasses to be compared, and finding by accurate weighing which i 
capable of putting the most meat on an animal. The scales and the price current wi 
then settle the question of their comparative value conclusively. We have sought fo 
