Guinea Grass has been cultivated in India and Ceylon. When well manured and kept clear of weeds, it grows most luxuriantly, and admits of being cut every six weeks or two months. A small patch near Colombo, which, beginning with about three-quarters of an acre, gradually extended to above an acre and a half, for seven or eight years supplied three or four milch cows and from five to seven horses continually with all the grass required for their consumption, and latterly left a surplus, which was dried for bed ding and hay. When first planted it frequently attains a height of even nine feet ; and a stalk taken promiscuously from a small patch planted about the year 1857 in Combaconum, measured 10 feet 4• inches in length ; but when cut two or three times it grows thicker, but not so high. It is exceedingly excellent feeding for horses and cattle, and is generally preferred by them to the ordinary country grass, though horses which are hard worked seem to prefer the Cynodon dactylon grass roots supplied by the grass-cutters.
Sugar is a product of one of the grasses. It exists in great quantities in the sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum), and species of saccharum are valued in India for rope-making and thatching. The boatmen of the Indus universally employ the moonja (probably Saccharum moonja) as a tow ing-rope and for the rigging of their vessels, in all places above Sukkur, two-inch ropes, often fifty fathoms in length, made of moonja fibres, being sufficient for dragging their largest or 1200-maund boats up the Indus, against the full force of the stream. The rope is also light, so advantageous for rigging, and bears without injury alternate exposure to wet and to subsequent drying,—both qualities being essential for a tow-rope. The upper leaves, about a foot or so in length, are preferred, are collected into bundles, and kept for use.
The moonja of Hindustan (Saccharum moonja) is collected after the rainy season and kept for use, as it is employed in tying up their cattle at night and for ropes for their Persian wheels. It is said also to be one of the grasses employed for making tow-ropes by the boatmen about Benares. The sbur or sara of Bengal (Saccharum sara), or the pen-reed grass, is employed by the boatmen about Allahabad and Mirzapore, and esteemed as a tow line for its strength and durability, even when exposed to the action of water. It is said to be beaten into a rude fibre, and th en twisted into a rope. The sacred grass of the Hindus, the dab or koosha of the Brahmans (Poa cynosuroides), is also made into rope in N.W. India.
Several indigenous grasses are employed for making mats, baskets, ropes, sacks, nets, and sails.
Species of the bamboo are numerous, and the inhabitants use them for all the purposes to which in Europe wood is applied, and to many of those for which the metals are utilized.
Closely connected with the subject of tho pas. Lure grasses is that of providing green food for horses, camels, and elephants, and one to which little attention has been paid, though the supply has much diminished in the neighbourhood of towns and largo stations. To this Dr. Wallich called attention in his evidence before the Com mittee of the House of Commons in 1832, stating that for any number of animals, either for con veyance or for consumption, any quantity of food might be produced in the utmost possible abund ance in India, but suggested that a moro ready and plentiful supply of food for elephants and camels should be provided, by planting those trees (such as particular Indian fig-trees) which form the staff of life for them, and which are extremely easily cultivated. In tho Madras Presidency, considerable exertions were made about the year 1706, in everywhere planting what was called the bastard cedar (Guazuma uhnifolia) as green food for cattle (Royle's Productive Resources of India). Tho need for care on this point increases with the extending cultivation; rye-grass and clover grow well in upland districts in India, and when sown fresh have been found to answer admirably on the Shevaroy, Pulney, Baba - Booden; and Neil gherry hills. In Gujerat, the cultivators feed their cattle on the sweet stalks of the joari and bajra.
The Prangos hay plant grass of Tibet was found by illy. Moorcroft to be employed both as winter fodder for sheep and goats, and frequently for neat cattle. Writing from the neighbourhood of Draz, ho described the plant as producing fatness in a space of time singularly short, and likewise as being destructive to the river fluke ; he therefore justly concluded that it would be an invaluable acquisition to any country. When once in the possession of the ground, for which the prepara tion is easy, it requires no subsequent ploughing, weeding, manuring, or other operation, save that of cutting and of converting the foliage into hay. Though abundant in various directions, the Kash miriana do not esteem it of any value, and Dr. Falconer is of opinion that its importance had been much over-estimated, in consequence of its being the only food in many of the bleak and barren tracts of Tibet. In Kashmir, where, far from a deficiency of herbage, there is actually a superabundance of pasture grasses, it is necessarily much less esteemed. The Prangos will therefore most probably be a valuable acquisition only in countries devoid of good natural pasturage, and of which the climate is favourable to its growth.— Dr. Cleghorn's Grasses ; Moorcroft, Tr. p. 179 ; Hoyle, Pro. Res. ; Hoyle, Ind. Fibres; Schouto in Jameson's Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, April 1825 ; Spry's Suggestions.
P ANICIIENkERNY LEWAY, in Corle Pattoo in Ceylon; a bed of salt formed on it by an inroad of the ocean.