MAINE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE.

PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS

AT THE ANNUAL MEETING AT

WARREN, FEB. 19th, 20th and 21st, 1878.

THE GRASSES OF MAINE.

BY SAMUEL WASSON, EAST SURRY.

Grass, an herb with long, narrow leaves, is the common herbage of the field, on which cattle feed. As its properties are unlike, it is variously grouped, the classifications being scientific, artificial, superficial and whimsical-the whimsical, being the one in use in common every-day life, and which calls everything a grass, is like calling every creeping thing an insect because it creeps.

A popular and convenient classification arranges them in five groups, as-Jungle or Bush, Aquatic or Water, Marine or Seaside, Meadow or Upland, Agrarían or Fallow.

The classification for the purpose of this paper, is founded upon use alone, disregarding all the features of the plant, excepting in the relation of friend or foe.

The Graminea, or Grass Family, the most important in the vegetable kingdom, is a vast family of plants, comprising 300

genera, embracing 4,000 species, to which yearly discoveries are constantly adding. As "nothing was made in vain," then, of this numerous family, distributed throughout the whole world, each was made for a purpose, and has a place to fill in creation's plan.

The dividing line between a grass and a weed, is a "devious path where fancy leads," for many of the so-called weeds are real grasses, or friends in disguise, and many of the true grasses are de facto weeds, or enemies to be avoided. Barn grass (Panicum crus galli), and Witch-grass (Triticum repens) become grasses or weeds, just as their room is or is not "better than their company." They fill the place in the play of "now you see it, and now you don't."

Of the friendly forage grasses, of which there are hundreds, most farmers cultivate only the friendship of herds-grass, redtop and clover. A few add orchard grass and brown-top, and occasionally one, shaping a course by something more tangible than ancestral "say-so's," adds twelve, or twenty, to his retinue of grass friends.

Such of our agricultural book makers as have not stepped out into the field of truth and common sense, recommend only six sorts as the full complement of friendly grasses which can rightfully claim a natural superiority; when acres of observation are covered with facts which have grown up in spite of the old dead-stuff of the past, showing that neither six nor ten times six, reach the highest number of grasses of natural pre-eminence.

Herds-grass, red-top and clover, are the creations of man; their superior merits are due to the loving kindness of culture, while the ugliness of many a grass, driven into exile as a weed, is chargeable to neglect.

The symmetrical form and beauty of our thoroughbreds, the luscious and health-giving fruits, the cereal grains, and thousands of the beautiful flowers,

"That consecrate this fallen world of ours,"

are not found in nature, their excellencies have been evolved by the vigilance of man.

THE PLAN OF STRUCTURE OF THE GRASSES.

Every plant is a living witness of a creative plan. Examine a grass plant, and the plan of its structure is seen to be fixed by a simple mathematical law, which applies to every part, the root, the stem, the leaf, the flower, the seed. Each is. constructed and arranged by that same law, and by it is fixed the form and shape and the precise place each is to occupy. The leaves, lance-like, alternate, and two-ranked, always; while those of a true weed are in three ranks, an apple in five, a plantain in eight, and so on in the same numerical progression.

Measure the distance around the stem of a grass, or the stalk of a weed, or the trunk of a tree, and the circumference of each, describes a circle that every school-boy knows is divided into 360 equal parts, however large or however small the circle may be. With a grass measuring around the stem from the first leaf at precisely 180 spaces, is the point of attachment of the second leaf, and at 180 spaces more is the third leaf, which is vertically over the first leaf. With a true weed the second leaf is one-third of the way around, or 120 spaces from each other, so that the fourth leaf is over the first; with a plantain the second leaf is one-eighth the way around, or at 45 spaces, bringing the ninth leaf over the first. Of the tens of thousands of plants, the true grasses have their leaves at the greatest possible divergence, or half on one side of the stem and the rest on the other side.

The stalk of a grass has joints; the stalk of a weed has none. (The "Wandering Jew," a cryptogamous or flowerless plant, is jointed.) A grass has as many leaves as it has joints, and the leaf can be taken off without splitting or tearing it, excepting where it is fastened at the joint. Plants, not grasses, are covered or surrounded by an epidermis or skin, which tears or splits in taking off, like the bark from a cedar tree.

With many of the different grasses, the resemblance is so very close that botanists only can tell "which is which." Botanists say that red-top and Rhode Island bent are identical.. Practical men say they are not, and no theory can dispute an

inch of ground with practice. Cattle tell when a grass is friendly. A grass may be rich in nutritive matter and animals refuse to eat it. A forage plant, known as Ulex Europaeus, which will increase the flow of milk and gives a good flavor to butter, is armed with sharp barbs,

"Every blossom has a troop of swords

Drawn to defend it."

Analysis often finds a plant to be wanting in nutritive matter which is peculiarly palatable to cattle. Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon), ranked as worthless, and for years looked upon as a curse, when properly cured, in Southern markets is worth $30 a ton for horses.

General Characteristics.-Unlike most of the other families of plants, the grasses are restricted to no belts of latitude; nor are they bounded by any climatic range, but in every country, clime and soil, spring up to dress the earth in living green. The law of arrest in geographical expansion they do not respect.

Although the grasses possess or acquire a capacity to grow under a wide range of climatic variations, only where there are occasional snows do they ever form a true turf or sod. A real grass turf rarely occurs south of Washington, or below the drift range. It is the rich, green grass carpet of Ireland, which makes it the Emerald Isle. It is the velvety sod of Switzerland, with its "green things" growing, which named her mountains the Alps.

The bamboo and kangaroo grasses of tropical climates, do not form a turf, but grow singly or in groups or tufts. At Old Orchard Beach, in our own State, a species of tussac grass grows, in the drifting sand, as far as it is bathed with the spray of the sea. This genus, the "gold and glory" of the Falkland Islands, contains two species, Carex trifida, which is an inferior grass, and Festuca flabellata, which will make cattle thrive. Both will grow from root-slips.

In Maine there are 125 known species of grass, which, under the influence of culture and climate, may sub-divide into a thousand varieties. In New Hampshire, 18 families or