The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-12-07
For the Dispstch.
LESPEDEZA STRATA.
What we Know about it. and What
we do not Know.

have written good deal upon this sub
iect, yet nothing, trust, superfuous, COR
sidering the manifest Importance of it. Il
ever there was matter deeply concerning
to these southern States it is that to which
their attention is now SO earnestly called
that is, the supply Of the great agricultural
want which every man engaged in the cul-
tiyation of the earth has felt to his hearts
core from the first settlement of the coun-
try. Had any one q few years ago pre-
dicted that the time was at hand when the
waste and desolate lands which have so
long disfgured its aspect, and not only
these, but its woodlands, its roadsides, its
lanes, it's pine thickets, its hedges, its bar
rem hills, and its richer valleys, were about
to be covered with nutritious and most
beautiful heritage adapted to the use of
every living thing that eats grass, and fit
ted to sustain as large if not larger num-
Der of stock of sll kinds than the red-top
and timothy of New England, or the blue
grass of Kentucky, he would have been
considered mailman. Such thing would
have been looked upon as On absolute i'm
possibility, and men would have sneered
and hooted at the very idea of it: 30 little
can We sometimes foresee the changes which
are about to take place. Yet that this
change is about to take place-thst it is at
this very time taking place-that it has
already taken place to very considerable.
extent in some parts of this and the ad-
Joining counties-that it il here as well as
in parts of several other States going on
rapidly to its completion-that in less than
ten years, with little energy and moral
courage on the part Of our agriculturists,
the whole southern landscape, in many
places heretofore SO desolate and dreary, is
to be covered with one bright and beautiful
smile is as certain as it is that any effect
must follow its adequate cause. No man
here in his senses who sees the Japan clo-
yer spring up spontaneously along every
highwsy, following up every by-path' COW
trail, and wagon track; showing itself IN
smooth, green, carpet-like patches over the
old wastes where for half q century past
the grasshopper has scarcely been able to
find subsistence who sees from year TO
to year how radiply it is extending itself
in every direction without the least aid
from human effort or skill, and spreading
itself over the whole country, can have any
more doubt of the fact than he can of his
own personal existence. This is one Of the
things we know Of Japan clover certainly ;
and it furnishes sufficient reason why
every man in those parts where it has no;
yet appeared should be anxious to get a
start OF it on his own premises at almost any
cost. The first acre he can get would be
cheap to him at one hundred dollars, espe-
cially when it is considered that from that
one acre he may 90 on to seed his own
lands indefinitely without tks expenditure
of one additional dollar. This is no airy
vision-no baseless fabric of fancy. 1t is,
solemnly believe, as real and substantial a
truth as ever was seen floating in the future
by the eye Of uninspired man.
Among the things which are not known
Of this plant, yet tending to the same prac-
tieal result, are its precise nativity and
the time and manner Of its introduction
among ourselves. That it is native OF
China or Japan seems now to be generally
conceded; yet the only evidence of this is
the TACT that Thunberg and other botanists
ootalned specimens Of it in those countries
towards the latter part Of the seventeenth
century. The question, therefore, is yet an
open one: Is it indigenous to the soil OF
those countries, or was it brought into them
from some other? But that is o question
for the curious rather than one of any
practical value to ourselves. The INQUIRY
how it found its way into these southern
States is not only interesting in itself, bu,
capable of some practical use, inasmuch as
it may serve as new and striking illustra,
ton Of the vastly important results which
are sometimes found to proceed from the
most insignificant causes. It is furnished
with no downy wings, like the thistle and
some other plants, to wait it from region
TO region and from CLINE to CLINE. That il
never could have reached US, therefore, BY
the winds or waves-the unaided agency
of inanimate nature alone-will scarcely be
denied. Nor is it likely that when it did
come, 1t came in any considerable quantity
Possibly, like the Norway oats, which are
now making so much noise in the little
world of the United States, q single seed of
it may have found its way in chest Of tea
or some other product Of the Malay or Mon
golian races; or it may have been brought
to our shores in the crop OF pigeon or
some other bird of passage. Yet from that
e;np,o eee5 az IL nav have been in either