The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1883-07-07
Ghe @armer,
Importance and Value of Grass.

Few realize the value and importance of
grass 1t is literally true that ''all flesh is
grass, and no mere figure of speech-that
is, taking grass as the synonym for all kinds
of herbage eaten by animals. The vege-
table caters among wild animals supply
the food for carniverous ones, so that
the vegetable creation, in fact, sup
ports every kind of life, directly or indi-
rectly, and civilized mankind exists only
through the products of grass. If one
should consider what these products are,
approximately and ultimately, the task
would bewilder any ordinary imagination
unused to profound problems, and would be
abandoned before it were half finished.
All our breadstuhs are grass; our noble
sugar-cane, our prolific corn, the indispen-
sable wheat, barley, rye, oats, are all
grasses; our meat, cheese, butter, milk,
leather, WOOL horn, glue, hair; the animal
force which plows the fields and sets the
commerce of cities in primary motion;
our necessaries and our comforts and even
luxuries Of life, all come for the greater
part directly or seeondarily from our grass
and grass-grain fields. But we desire to
draw attention just now solely to grass as a
crop from which We procure our pasture
and our hay, considering, and believing,
too, that sufficient attention is not given to
this chief crop of the farmer. For if one
takes the trouble to investigate the subject,
he will find in by far the great majority of
cases the yield and product of the grass
crop are by no means what they should,
could, and might be. The average yield
of meadow is less than one ton Of hay
per acre, and the average pasture requires
ten acres to support one COW. This fact
shows in an incidental way that pasturing
is much the most costly system of feeding
stock, and that under our present system
of managing our grass lands, hay is the
most costly of all our folders The cheap
manner Of gathering the grass when it is
pastured recompenses to some extent the
more deficient yield, but it may be ques-
toned if the labor of the COWS thus made
to gather their own fodder is not more
costly than the man, horse, and machine
work that would otherwise perform the
service.
Botanically, grass is a vast and most i'm
portant family of plants. The family is
divided into no less than 66 tribes and sub
tribes, and each of these has numerous spe-
cies. Most of them are indispensable, and
all of them are more or less valuable. The
Poas, Agrostida, Festucas, Loliums, Pan
ieums, Sorghums, Phelum, and some others
of less importance make up the list of our
cultivated genera. Grass is distinguished
by its usually hollow, jointed stems, closed
at the joints; its long, slender, alternate
leaves, and by its fruit borne in spikelets
and inclosed in glumes or chaff. Glover,
very commonly called grass, is at once
seen to differ in every respect from grass,
and to belong to an entirely different family
of plants. The roots of grasses are either
fbrous or creeping, and the latter charac-
teristic, perceived in Kentucky blue grass,
redtOp, creeping bent, and some other
kinds, confers upon them their most useful
quality, while in others, as in the dreaded
quack- grass, it is the most Objectionable
peculiarity about them.