A number more are common to both continents, like the Vanilla-grass, often gathered for its perfume, and which in Northern Europe is called holy-grass, from its being scattered before church-doors on holydays; and the manna-grass, bearing sweet grains, which are eaten in Holland and some other countries; the dent-grasses, also, good for cattle, several of which are natives, while others have been introduced. There seem to be some twenty varieties which thus belong to both continents.
In addition to the preceding, there are upwards of a hundred more grasses belonging strictly to the soil; many of these are mere weeds, though others are very useful. Among the native plants of this kind are nimble-will, a great favorite with the Kentucky farmers, and found as far east as this State; several useful kinds of fescue-grass, and soa, one of which has something of the fragrance of the vernal-grass, and the reed canary-grass, of which the ribbon-grass of gardeners is a variety; the salt grasses of the coast, also, very important to the sea-shore farmers. Among the native plants of this tribe we have the wild oat, wild rye, wild barley, mountain rice, and wild rice, found in many of the waters of this State, both fresh and brackish.
Altogether, of some hundred and fifty grasses, about one-fifth of the number seem of foreign origin; but if we consider their importance to the farmer, and the extent of cultivated soil they now cover, we must take a different view of them; probably in this sense the native grasses scarcely rank more than as one to four in our meadows and cultivated lands.
The clovers, also, though thoroughly naturalized, are most of them imported plants: the downy “rabbit-foot,” or “stone-clover,” the common red variety; the “zig-zag,” and the “hop clo-
