Grasses and forage plants. A practical treatise, comprising their natural history; comparative nutritive value; methods of cultivating, cutting, and curing; and the management of grass lands in the United States and British provinces

Front matter

tgBmSSg&P

I mm

I iilH.

Preface

THE object of the following pages is to embody the most recent practical and scientific information on the history, culture, and nutritive value, of the grasses and the grains. To make the work practically useful, I have treated the subject with plainness and simplicity, so far as it admits of it, and have at least indicated to the reader the vast field of study which lies open before him in this direction.

The large number of illustrations of the different species of grasses, drawn, as they have been, with great care and accuracy, will serve to facilitate the study and identification of unknown specimens. Most of these appeared in the first and second editions of the work. I have added to this edition a few, drawn by Professor I. A. Lapham, of Milwaukie.

In treating the subject from an economical point of view, I have tried to give what is known to be of special value, and have presented the experience of practical men upon points about which the opinions of farmers differ. The reader will be best able to judge how far I have succeeded in accomplishing my object.

1* (6)

VI PREFACE.

It seems unnecessary to , dwell here upon the importance of the subject. Perennial grasses, says an eminent practical farmer, are the true basis of agriculture in the highest condition of that best employment of man. Grasses which are not perennial are of immense value, especially as one of the shifts in the ordinary rotation of crops, suited to the agriculture of the great upper or northerly portion of our continent, all of it above the cotton line. But it is the grasses which are perpetual to which we are to look for our chief success in farming.

Perhaps the most forcible expression of opinion on this point may be found in a French writer, who asserts that the term grass is only another name for beef, mutton, bread, and clothing; or in the Belgian proverb, " No grass, no cattle; no cattle, no manure ; no manure, no crops ! "

If my researches, imperfect as they doubtless have been, should have the effect of creating a more general interest in the subject, and leading to more careful inquiry, and more general and accurate investigation, I shall be amply rewarded for any labor which I have bestowed upon the preparation of the following pages.

C. L. F.

BOSTON, Aug., 1859.

GENERAL TREATMENT OF GRASS LAND, 351

CONCLUSION,

SYSTEMATIC INDEX,

GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS.

Introduction

I PROPOSE to speak of the grasses, a family of plants the most extensive and the most beautiful, as well as the most important to mankind. It embraces nearly a sixth part of the whole vegetable kingdom ; it clothes the globe with perpetual verdure, or adorns it at fixed seasons with a thick matted carpet of green, none the less beautiful for its simplicity ; and it nourishes and sustains by far the greater part of the animals that serve us and minister to our wants.

When we consider the character of our climate, and the necessity that exists, throughout all the northern and middle portions of the United States and the Canadas, of stall-feeding from three to five or six months of the year, for means of which we are dependent mainly on the grasses, it is plain that, in an economical point of view, this subject is one of the most important that can occupy the farmer's attention.

The annual value of the grass crop to the country, for pasturage and hay together, cannot be less than three hundred million dollars, to say nothing of a vast amount of roots and other plants cultivated and used as forage crops.

I shall endeavor to give a brief account of the natural history or description of all the useful grasses found in

10 INTRODUCTION.

our fields and pastures, partly because it is essential to a complete understanding of Ihe subject, and partly because there is at present no popular treatise on the subject within the easy reach of our farmers, and something of the kind is needed for reference ; but I shall confine myself mainly to a plain and practical treatment of the subject, making such suggestions as I think may be useful, on the cultivation, cutting, and curing, of the grasses for hay, the comparative value of the different varieties, and the general management of grass lands.

This subject has long been familiar to me, and has especially occupied my attention for the last few years, during which I have made an extensive collection, embracing a large proportion of the varieties described in the following pages, for preservation in the Agricultural Museum connected with my office. In addition to my own extensive observations on the subject, I have sought information in the statements of intelligent farmers in different parts of the country. Many of these I have myself conversed with, while others have favored me, in writing, with the results of their own experience, from which I shall draw with a liberal hand, for the purpose of giving the work a practical character, and of bringing the subject home to the general reader. In treating of the natural grasses, I shall limit myself mainly to a description of those species which it may be for the interest of the farmer to cultivate, or at least to encourage in his pastures, with such others as should be known, to be avoided.

In the arrangement of species I shall follow mainly the natural order adopted by Professor Gray, to whom, as well as to many others, I am indebted for no small assistance, in studying the specific characteristics of many of the specimens collected and presented in the following pages.