The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1879-11-06
2bf Farm.
GRASSES FOR THE SOUTH AND
HOW TO CULTIVATE THEM.
An Essay Read Before the South
Carolina Agricultural and Me-
chanical Society n State
Grange by D. P. Duncan.
ESQ. Of Union County.


experimenting with grass for the past ten
years | felt as though / would be at home
with this subject; and then, it grows so
we'll for me, and it seems like [ can have
more OF it on less space than any one | know
in fact, | think Dean Swift would have
called me a benefacter, for you remember
he said, '.that man was a benefactor who
could make two blades Of grass grow where
only one grew BEFORE" and my %neighbors
tell me if [ can get a little guano | will
make forty blades grow where there never
was any before. And then, again, Thought
it would be 'just the thing for a young
man like me to be up here reading an essay
along with all the agricultural and Grange
magnates Of the land, and further more, it
has become so highly fashionable TO look
after and cultivate these Grange and
agricultural meetings. All our great men
do it." and who knows but what l may
make a vote by it.
Well, farmer like, | kept putting off pre-
pa airing for this occasion until suddenly
there anne a notice, Summer meeting Of
the Agricultural Society, second Tuesday
in August, at Chester, 8. Co.," and | said
to myself, ''you had better be seeing about
that essay but of course / knew it was a
small matter, and that anybody could write
an essay on grass. So on one of those late
hot days in July when the Thermometer was
somewhat up in the ~nineties in the shade, /
put a little table by a northeast window
we're there was a little breeze slipping in
between the blinds as though it was ashamed
Of being around on such a hot day. | had
chairs all around me on which were my
Encyclopedia, my bound copies of the Ru-
Cdrohnidn, american 4gyicuIturr,st,
&c. My "Webster's Unabridged had a
chair all to itself. Then l said, now I'll
write an essay that will surprise the folks
over yonder, and so concluded l would
write a very scientific article, it would show
more learning. But | found after writing
a while about clover, orchard grass, Timothy,
tall meadow oats, Rescus, Italian rye grass
and last, but not least, our own dear old
crab, that was only getting up a very dull
and prosy concern.
/ then decided, as [ was pretty well ''rcad
up on these subjects, | would put together
what l had learned in an eloquent and
grand-worded way, and that weuld take;
but | did not get far on that line before /
found that essay was going to be a great
mistake, and l awoke to the sad, sad fact
that all of my wits were badly in ''the
grass, . and that in my %conceit | had con-
sented to do one of the greenest acts Of my
life. 1t was two late now to turn back,
my hand was already sat the plough"
the meeting was on hand, the essay had
been announced. and if not forthcoming the
epitaph would be, whipped out by Gen.
Green
So / just concluded, as had been hav-
ing some grass patches, | would write my
experience in a plain farmer-like manner,
bring it up here to be thrown into the heap
this meeting, and if it was productive
OF even u stimulating thought to
thought to any farmerI would be more
than repaid for my exertions; and if there
was no good metal in it, it could be thrown
into the fire and burned with the rest of THE
%''stubble."
l dare say in your reading of Ramsay's
History of South Carolina this question
offered itself, "WHere is the necessity of
artificial grasses?" For you read there about
magnificent and endless forests, clear pure
filled with fish; all these thousand
hills, whenever the leaves were burned off,
would be soon covered with a luxuriant
growth of native grass and a wild pea or
vstch; all kind Of game abounded.
We Of to-day think it must, indeed be a
romance - we read of this picture, and
look at the face of our poor, |
dear State presents. Why in a ride Of less
than thirty miles across the country. from
Union Courthouse to this place, whilst it may
not literally be so, yet it seems as though
nothing meets the eye but sea Of gullies wieh
OF bald spots; and 1 hope you won't
smile, or the Society think me extravagant, |
when | say in some places are so thick that
that they seem to be on top of each other, and
the few spots left fer the broomsedge and
pines seem so lonely and sad, like the man
who found himself in the wrong pew, and
wished he had not come to be left in such
y hopeless minority.
! had q gentleman on the Union side of
Broad River tell me sometimes he would
got on one OF those broomsedge stripes on
nile before he could get out.
10 De continued.