the slopes of the IIisnalaya there are found abundance of good nourishing pastures, admirably adapted to the requirements of cattle and sheep, and upon which many herds and flocks are reared when the dry season forces them from the plains below. Throughout the flat countries, and spread over vast tracts of indifferent soil, wo meet with grasses, or rather herbage, in sufficient abundance, but generally either coarse and poor, or rank and distasteful to animals. In swampy or sterile plains these reedy grasses often fail to tempt even the coarse-feeding buffalo and rhino ceros ; and it is a common practice amongst all the Indian villagers at the end of the dry season to set fire to such tracts, on which the long withered herbage readily ignites, and after the first monsoon showers furnishes a rapid and abundant supply of young sweet blades. In some parts of India, especially near the larger towns, it is customary to cut grass for hay as,:fodder for horses during the excessively dry months.
Besides grain, camels and elephants are fed upon the leaves of various trees. The goats, sheep, and cattle are pastured upon what are called tho waste land, or the jungles of the villages ; the last are fed also upon chopped straw, and the stalks of the joar (Sorghum vulgare), cut into small pieces ; while horses, besides pulses, are fed upon grass brought in by men called grass-cutters, but who rather scrape off the ground the creeping stems and young leaves of the grass called Doob or Durba, or 71Inriali (the Cynodon dactylon of botanists). This grows throughout the year, is fortunately the most common species through out India, and succeeds particularly well in the northern parts, where lawns and 'statures of moderate extent are made by planting pieces of its creeping stems. It is also much used for forming a covering for the banks of rivers, ramparts, and esplanades. A very nourishing grass, possessing a powerful aromatic odour, is met with on the elevated lands above the ghats of the south, as well as in the North-West Pro vinces. So strong arc its aroma and flavour, that the flesh, milk, and butter of the animals feeding upon it become in time sensibly affected both in taste and smell.
Throughout India, the pasture binds are every where left to nature ; there is generally it right of common pasturage, and there is nothing to prevent the village cattle from roaming at dis cretion. The first step, therefore, towards the improvement of grass lands must be the establish ing and keeping up a strong and sufficient fence.
The principal of the Indian grasses, and perhaps the most generally diffused, is the Doob grass (Cynodon dactylon), a creeping plant possessing much nourishing property to its long stems no less than in its leaves. This endures the greatest elevation of temperature, as its roots penetrate far below the surface ; and although during the dry monsoon giving no signs of life, it puts forth its tender leaves on the first approach of the rains. The Cynodon dactylon or Hariali grass of India is occasionally grown from seed. Root creeping through the loose sand, with strong fibres at the nodes. Stem rarely exceeding 6 inches in height, creeping to a considerable extent, matted, very smooth. Florets, all on one side of the spike-stalk, awnless, purplish, and ranged in two close alternate rows. All the stems which lie near the ground take root, and by this means, though an annual plant, it increases and spreads very wide. It yields abundance of seed, of which
small birds are very fond. It has been found a successful plan to allow the seed to ripen before the hay is cut, as it then propagates itself by the seeds, in addition to the runners. This grass is also found in Great Britain, but in that country its produce and nutritive properties are compara tively insignificant, while in India it constitutes three-fourths of the pasture. Respecting this grass, Sir W. Jones observes (As. Res. iv. 242) that it is the sweetest and most nutritious pasture for cattle, and its usefulness, added to its beauty, indueed the Hindus, in their earliest ages, to believe that it was the mansion of a benevolent nymph.' Even the Veda celebrates it, as in the following text of the A't'harvana: 'May Durva, which rose from the water of life, which has a hundred roots and a hundred stems, efface a hundred of my sins, and prolong my existence on earth a hundred years.' On the table-lands of the East Indies, most of the food of man is obtained from the millets ; but in the low lands, in the eastern parts of the tem perate zone of the old continent, in Further India, China, and Japan, northern kinds of grain become unfrequent, and rice is found to predo minate. The cause of this difference between the east and the west of the old continent appears to be in the manners and peculiarities of the people. In North America, wheat and rye grow as in Europe, but more sparingly. Maize is more reared in the western than in the old continent, and rice predominates in the southern provinces of the United States. In the torrid zone, maize pre dominates in America, rice in Asia ; and both these grains in nearly equal quantity in Africa. The cause of this distribution is without doubt historical, for Asia is the native country of rice, and America of maize. There are numerous grasses common in India which cattle delight in, but the greater number of these flourish most in the rainy season. Their rapid growth, and the great height they attain, as well as their withered and dry nature towards the close of the year, soon, however, unfit them for pasture grasses. For pasturing sheep, the table-land from Coimbatore to Kandesh, and the provinces from Gujerat to Hurriana and Saharanpur, seem suited. But the Himalayas, enjoying a temperate climate and a European-like vegetation, have also abundant and excellent pasturage. During the rainy season, when the temperature is moist but equable, the Himalayas have many grasses resembling those in the plains. These are associated with others be longing to European genera, which are able to withstand the winter's cold ; so that throughout the year, nearly, there is abundant pasturage in the neighbourhood of the Himalayan villages. Of this the inhabitants avail themselves, by driving their herds of cattle and flocks of goats and of sheep to different ranges and elevations, accord ing to the season of the year. The sward upon these mountains is short and thick, and very closely resembles that which is met with on the mountains of Scotland and Wales. Dr. Hoyle, in his Illustrations of the Botany of the Himalayan Mountains, has mentioned that these grasses be long to such genera as agrostis, fox-tail grass, cat's-tail, meadow grass, fescue, cock's-food, bent grass, oat grass, and others.