Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1883-07-20
farmers' Gnlunrn.
Give fools their gold & knaves their powe
Let fortunes bubbles rise and fail;
Who s0ws u field or trains . flower,
Or plants a tree, Is more than all.
Importance and Value Of Grass

Few realize the value and import
ance 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 heritage eat
en- by animals. The vegetable eaters
among wild animals supply the food
for carniverous ones, so that the vege-
table creation, in fact, supports every
kind Of life, directly or indirectly, and
civilized mankind exists only through
the products of grass. If one should
consider what these products are, ap-
proxinately and ultimately, the task
would bewilder any ordinary imagina-
ton unused to profound problems, and
would be abandoned before it were
half finished. All our breadstuffs are
grass; our noble sugar cane, our pro-
life corn, the indispensable wheat, rye,
barley, oats, are grasses; our meat, but
ter, cheese, milk, leather, wool, horn
glue, hair; the animal force which
plows the fields aud sets the commerce
Of cities in primary motion our neces-
saries and our comforts and even lux
uries of life, all come for the greater
part directly or seconda5dy from our
grass and grass grain fields. But We
desire to draw attention just now sole
ly to grass as crop from which we
procure our pasture and our hay, con-
sldering and believing too. that suffi-
cient attention is not given to
this chief crop Of the farmer. For
if one takes the trouble to investigate
the object, he will find it by far the
great majority of cases the yield and
product of the grass crops are by no
means what they could, should, and
might be. The average yield of any
meadow is less than one ton of hay to
the acre, and the average pastures re-
quire 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 I'M
der 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 pas
tured recompenses to some extent the
more deficient yield, but it may be
questioned 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 other
wise perform the service.
Botanically, grass is vast aud most
important family of plants. The fam
lily is divided into no less than &c diff
ferent tribes and subtribes, and each
of these has different species. Most
of them are indispensable, and xll Of
them are more or less valuable. The
Poas, -Agrostid@, Festucas, Loliums,
Panieums, 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 spike
lets and enclosed in glumes or chat.
Glover, very commonly called grass, is
at once seen to differ in every respect
from grass, and to belong to an en-
tirely different family Of plants. The
roots of grasses are either fibrous or
creeping, and the latter characteristic,
perceived in Kentucky blue grass, red
top, 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
EXCEPTIONALLY popularity about them.
n.y.