In Praise of Blue Grass

IN PRAISE OF BLUE GRASS JOHN JAMES INGALLS (I833-I900) JOHN JAMES INGALLS was Senator an incantation, surprising as the sea from Kansas from 1873 to 1891. An to the soldiers of Xenophon as they address of his, printed in the Kansas stood upon the shore and shouted Magazine in 1872 and here reprinted "Thalatta!" It was BLUE GRASS, un- in part because copies of it are hard to known in Eden, the final triumph of get, contains a passage that is quoted nature, reserved to compensate her ofteîi. He was an eloqueîit man hut not favorite ofifspring in the new Paradise a scientist. of Kansas for the loss of the old upon the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates. Next in importance to the divine ATTRACTED by the bland softness profusion of water, light, and air. of an afternoon in my primeval winter those three great physical facts which in Kansas^ I rode southward through render existence possible, may be reck- the dense forest that then covered the oned the universal beneficence of bluffs of the North Fork of Wildcat. grass. Exaggerated by tropical heats The ground was sodden with the ooze and vapors to the gigantic cane con- of melting snow. The dripping trees gested with its saccharine secretion, or were as motionless as granite. The last dwarfed by polar rigors to the fibrous year's leaves^ tenacious lingerers, loath hair of northern solitudes, embracing to leave the scene of their brief bravery, between these extremes the maize with adhered to the gray boughs like fragile its resolute pennons, the rice plant of bronze. There were no visible indica- southern swamps, the wheat, rye, bar- tions of life, but the broad, wdntry land- ley, oats, and other cereals, no less scape was flooded with that indescrib- than the humbler verdure of hill-side, able splendor that never was on sea or pasture, and prairie in the temperate shore—a purple and silken softness, zone, grass is the most widely dis- that half veiled, half disclosed the alien tributed of all vegetable beings, and horizon, the vast curves of the remote is at once the type of our life and the river, the transient architecture of the emblem of our mortality. Lying in the clouds, and filled the responsive soul sunshine among the buttercups and wdth a vague tumult of emotions, pen- dandelions of May, scarcely higher in sive and pathetic, in which regret and intelligence than the minute tenants hope contended for the mastery. The of that mimic wilderness, our earliest dead and silent globe, with all its hid- recollections are of grass; and when den kingdoms, seemed swimming like a the fitful fever is ended, and the fool- bubble, suspended in an ethereal solu- ish wrangle of the market and forum is tion of amethyst and silver, com- closed, grass heals over the scar which pounded of the exhaling whiteness of our descent into the bosom of the the snow, the descending glory of the earth has made, and the carpet of the sky. A tropical atmosphere brooded infant becomes the blanket of the dead. upon an arctic scene, creating the As he reflected upon the brevity of strange spectacle of summer in winter, human life, grass has been the favorite June in January, peculiar to Kansas, symbol of the moralist, the chosen which unseen cannot be imagined, but theme of the philosopher. "All flesh is once seen can never be forgotten. A grass," said the prophet; "My days sudden descent into the sheltered are as the grass," sighed the troubled valley revealed an unexpected crescent patriarch ; and the pensive Nebuchad- of dazzling verdure, glittering like nezar, in his penitential mood, ex- a meadow in early spring, unreal as ceeded even these, and, as the sacred U< PRAISE OF BLUE GRASS historian informs us, did cat grass like BLUE GRASS. Why it is called blue, an ox. save that it is most vividly and intensely Grass is the forgiveness of nature— green, is inexplicable, but had its un- her constant benediction. Fields tram- known priest baptized it wâth all the pled with battle, saturated with bloody, hues of the prism, he would not have torn with the ruts of cannon, grow changed its hereditary title to imperial green again with grass, and carnage is superiority over all its humbl(T kin. forgotten. Streets abandoned by traffic Taine, in his incomparable History become grass-grown like rural lanes, of English Literature, has wêll said that and are obliterated. Forests decay, hai"- the body of man in every country is vests perish, flowers vanish, but grass deeply rooted in the soil of nature. He is immortal. Beleaguered by the sullen might properly have declared that men hosts of winter, it withdraws into the were wholly rooted in the soil, and that impregnable fortress of its subtc^x- the character of nations, like that of ranean vitality, and emerges upon the forests, tubers, and grains, is entirely first solicitation of spring. Sovv-n by the determined by the climate and soil in winds, by wandering birds, propagated which they germinate. Dogmas grow by the subtle horticulture of the ele- like potatoes. Creeds and carrots, cate- ments w4iich are its ministers and chisms and cabbages, tenets and tur- servants, it softens the rude outline of nips, religions and rutabagas, govern- the world. Its tenacious fibres hold the ments and grasses, all depend upon the earth in its place, and prevent its sol- dew point and the thermal range. Give uble components from washing into the philosopher a handful of soil, the the wasting sea. It invades the solitude mean annual temperature and rainfall, of deserts, climbs the inaccessible and his analysis would enable him to slopes and forbidding pinnacles of predict wdth absolute certainty the mountains, modifies climates, and de- characteristics of the nation. tíTmines th(^ history, character, and. Calvinism transplanted to the plains destiny of nations. Unobstrusive and of the Ganges w-ould perish of inani- patient, it has immortal vigor and ag- tion. Webster is as much an indige- gression. Banished from the thorough- nous product of New^ England as its fare and the field, it bides its time to granite and its pines. Napoleon was return, and when vigilance is relaxed, possible only in France; Cromwêll in or the dynasty has perished, it silently England; Christ, and the splendid in- resumes the throne from which it has vention of immortality, alone in Pales- been expelled, but which it never abdi- tine. Moral causes and qualities exert cates. It bears no blazonry or bloom to influences far beyond their nativity, charm the senses with fragrance or and ideas arc transplanted and ex- splendor, but its homely hue is more ported to meet th(^ temporary require- enchanting than the lily or the rose. It ments of the tastes or necessities of yields no fruit in earth or air, and yet man; as we see exotic palms in the should its harvest fail for a single year, conservatories of Chats worth, russet famine would depopulate the world. apples at Surinam, and oranges in One grass differs from another grass Atchison. But tht^re is no growth: in glory. One is vulgar and another nothing but change of location. The patrician. There are grades in its phenomena of politics exhibit the op- vegetable nobility. Some varieties are erations of the same law. useful. Some are beautiful. Others The direct agency upon which all combine utility and ornament. The these conditions depend, and through sour, reedy herbage of swâmps is base- which these forces operate, is food. born. Timothy is a valuable servant. Temperature, humidity, soil, sunlight, Redtop and clover are a degree higher electricity, vital force, express them- in the social scale. But the king of selves primarily in vegetable existence them all, with genuine blood royal, is that furnishes the basis of that animal 8 YEARBOOK OF AGRICULTURE 194 8 life which yields sustenance to the human : man dies and goes to grass again ; man race. What a man, a community, and so the tide of life, with everlasting a nation can do, think, sufier, imagine repetition, in continuous circles, moves or achieve depends upon what it cats. endlessly on and upward, and in more * -x- -^ senses than one, all flesh is grass. But The primary form of food is grass. all flesh is not bluegrass. If it were, Grass feeds the ox: the ox nourishes the devil's occupation would be gone. THE MEEK THAT INHERIT THE EARTH AGNES CHASE OF ALL PLANTS the grasses arc the spikelets, which are really little flower- most important to man. All our brcad- ing branches. The hypothetical flower- stufl's—corn, wheat, oats, rye, bark^— bearing branchlet is never elongated, and rice and sugarcane are grasses. as shown in figure 3 for the sake of com- Bamboos are grasses, and so are the parison. The palea is immediately Kentucky bluegrass and creeping bent above the lemma, and the flower im- of our lawns, the timothy and redtop mediately above the palea. The axis of our meadows. of the spikelet (rachilla) is jointed as If such different-looking plants as is the culm of a grass, and the lemmas bamboo, corn, and timothy arc all (specialized leaves reduced to a blade- grasses, what is it that characterizes a like sheath) are two-ranked as are the grass? It is the structure of the plant. leaves. All grasses have stems with solid The flowers have to do with per- joints and two-ranked leaves, one at petuating the species. Most grasses each joint.

Load more