Pampas grass

“ Who that has been on the Pampas but can picture to himself this party as it left the little mud-hut on the plain? The cumbrous, oscillating galera, with its shaggy, straggling four-in-hand,—the caracoling Gaucho couriers,—the negro pricking on behind,—the tall grass rolling out on every side,—the muddy pool that forms the watering-place for beasts and men scattered over a hundred miles of brookless plain,—the great sun streaming up from the herbage just in front, awakening the voices of a million insects and the carols of unnumbered birds in the thickets here and there! ”

“ Flowers are eagerly culled for the tasteful bouquet, but seldom does a group of flowers present so light and graceful a contour as a group of grasses. Ferns and sea-weeds are patiently studied, and grasses are neglected, though these latter are much more easy of classification, more beautiful as dried specimens, and as valuable in cultivation and in our drawing-room vase. These graceful plants, however, are gradually receiving more attention from the fancy gardener; bunches of Pampas grass wave their pennons on our lawns, and lift high their panicles of glossy florets ”

“ On the western selvage of this thistle tract lies the grass-covered section of the Pampas. It is much more extensive than that of the “cardonales,”—having an average width of three hundred miles, and running longitudinally throughout the whole northern and southern extension of the Pampas. Its chief characteristic is a covering of coarse grass,—which at different seasons of the year is short or tall, green, brown, or yellowish, according to the different degrees of ripeness. When dry, it is sometimes fired,—either by design or accident,—as are also the withered stems of the thistles ”

“ But what of those who have no conservatory, no hothouses, no means for preserving large tender plants in winter? They too may enjoy the beauty which plants of fine form afford. A better effect than any yet seen in an English garden from tender plants may be obtained by planting hardy ones only! There is the Pampas grass, which when well grown is unsurpassed by anything that requires protection. ”

“ Judging by its different appearance when freely grown in a tub indoors, and when planted out even in favourable spots, my impression is that it by no means takes so kindly to our northern climate as the Pampas grass. However, it is well worth growing, even in districts where it does not attain a great development. ”

“ The ornamental grasses should not be overlooked. They add a note to the flower-garden and to bouquets that is distinct and can be secured by no other plants. They are easily grown. Some of the good annual grasses are Agrostis nebulosa, the brizas, Bromus brizæformis, the species of eragrostis and pennisetums, and Coix Lachryma as a curiosity. Such good lawn grasses as arundo, pampas-grass, eulalias, and erianthus are perennials and are therefore not included in this discussion. ”

“ CHAPTER IV. TEE PRAIRIE AND ITS INHABITANTS. The Pampas, or prairie lands of the Argentine, stretch to the south and west of Buenos Ayres, and cover some 800,000 square miles. On this vast level plain, watered by sluggish streams or shallow lakes, boundless as the ocean, seemingly limitless in extent, there is an exhilarating air and a rich herbage on which browse countless herds of cattle, horses, and flocks of sheep. The grass grows tall, and miles upon miles of rich scarlet, white, or yellow flowers mingle with or overtop it. ”

“ Scientists have not yet been able to explain why the pampas, with a humid climate, and a soil exceedingly rich, have produced nothing but grass, while the dry, sterile territories on their north, west, and south borders have an arborescent vegetation. ”

“ Planted a short distance away from the margin of a shrubbery, or on a bank on the grass, and allowed to have its own way in deep soil, it makes a most striking object. In short, it deserves to rank high among really hardy fine grasses,{130} the Pampas and the two Arundos alone surpassing it. I am not quite certain that it is not more useful than the Arundo, being hardy in all parts of these islands. In very good soil it will grow 4 feet high; and as it is for the leaves we should cultivate it, if the flowers are removed they will be no loss. ”

“ The soil is a rich, deep loam, from four to six feet in depth, excepting in Patagonia and the western pampas, where there is a coarse gravel and detritus from the Andes. Instead of the dense tropical forest of the Amazon valley, the pampas are covered by a coarse grass, three or four feet high, growing in large tussocks and all the year round of a dark green. The strong grass crowds out all trees and almost all plants, so that scarcely a flower relieves the uniform, everlasting verdure. ”

“ The land still continued dry and sterile: but it supported many different kinds of plants, and the grass, though brown and withered, was more abundant, as the thorny bushes were less so. These latter in a short space entirely disappeared, and the plains were left without a thicket to cover their nakedness. This change in the vegetation marks the commencement of the grand calcareo argillaceous deposit, which forms the wide extent of the Pampas, and covers the granitic rocks of Banda Oriental. ”

“ Dust storms are terrible things during the summer, but happily are rare, and generally the forerunners of a pampero, accompanied by heavy rain, which refreshes the thirsty soil. Droughts are serious afflictions to the sheep and cattle, which often perish from their effects. Water is the great desideratum for the campo, and without it the prospects of the estanciero are blighted. As I have said before, the Banda Oriental is less subject to drought, being more undulated and better watered, but the pampas, or plains of Buenos Ayres, grow a more nutritive grass and rear finer sheep and cattle. ”

“ The scenery in these parts is wild and gloomy, the hills being almost denuded of any kind of vegetation except a long rough grass, which seems to give good pasturage to the cattle, roaming about apparently quite untended or watched by any one. The view from the hills looking across the pampas of Arani and Cliza would have been very fine had it not been much obscured by clouds of dust, and by the mirage left by the intense heat of the mid-day sun. ”

“ Many large tracts in the Pampas country would correspond well enough to this definition,—both as regards their appearance and the character of the herbage which covers them; but there are other parts which bear not the slightest resemblance to a meadow. There are vast tracts thickly covered with tall thistles,—so tall as to reach to the head of a man mounted on horseback, and so thickly set, that neither man nor horse could enter them without a path being first cleared for them.
Other extensive tracts are grown over with tall grass so rank as to resemble reeds or rushes more than grass ”

“ With of course different species of grass and quite different associated herbs, these grasslands are now found in our own prairies, the steppes of Russia, the plains of Hungary, the pampas of southern South America, the grasslands of Australia, the veld in Natal and in many other but mostly less extensive developments. Some of the grassland regions are warm, but without more rainfall than characterizes such areas the greater heat does not produce a forest. ”

“ The selvas are for the most part vast unbroken forests, in which giant trees, thick undergrowth, and entwining creepers combine to form a nearly impenetrable region. The pampas lie between the Andes and the Atlantic Ocean, stretching southward from northern Brazil to southern Patagonia, affording grass sufficient to feed innumerable herds of wild cattle, but at the extreme south the country sinks into half overflowed marshes and lagoons, resembling the glades and savannahs of Florida. ”

“ This peculiar mineral is found mixed with the soil, in greater or less abundance, from San Luis de la Punta (a town on the western side of the pampas of the Argentine Republic, where the grass plains properly end, and the travesia, or desert, commences) to the foot of the Andes.
“San Luis lies in latitude 33° 16′ south, longitude 66° 27′ west, and is the capital of the province of the same name. From this town westward the soil is almost worthless, until the River Mendoza is reached, where irrigation commences.
“The soil is very light and dry, and not in the least compact. ”

“ A single year would witness a changed vegetation and a new climate. In three years (fires kept out) there would be young trees in numerous places, and in twenty years there would be fair young forests. The description of the 'broad, grassy plains,' given in the foregoing pages, attests their capacity to sustain animal life. For cattle, sheep, horses, and mules, they are a natural pasture in summer, with (in many parts) hay cured standing for winter. The famed Pampas, with their great extremes of wet and drought, can not bear comparison with our western plains. ”

“ For nearly two hundred miles west of the La Plata, the soil produces a luxuriant growth of herbage, which is choked, however, in many places, by extensive forests of gigantic thistles, which grow to such a height that men, passing through them on horseback, are hidden by the lofty stems. So heavy is this growth that, at times, the thistle fields are impassable to man, and serve to the wild animals of the pampas as an undisturbed lair. ”

“ On the intervals of prairie grow the grasses, soft, brown and ripe with last year’s growth, showing as yet but little of the green of this. These paint all the background of the scene with their olives and tans, as if the painter of it first made his background with grass, then set his figures and lights and shades upon this, the gray stubs, the deep brown trunks of living trees, the vivid green of the palmetto leaves and gold of sunlight and purple of shadows chasing one another over all. ”

“ We here heard that the silvery clouds, which we had admired from the bright region above, had poured down torrents of rain. The valley from this point gradually opened, and the hills became mere water-worn hillocks compared to the giants behind: it then expanded into a gently-sloping plain of shingle, covered with low trees and bushes. This talus, although appearing narrow, must be nearly ten miles wide before it blends into the apparently dead level Pampas. ”

“ Along the river-banks grow strips of thorny trees, and as the frontier line trends northward palm-trees appear, and monkeys chatter in the woods. Herds of wild asses, shyer than antelopes, gaze at the passing horsemen, scour off when he approaches, and are lost into the haze. Stretches of purple borage, known as La Flor Morada, carpet the ground in spring and early summer, giving place later on to red verbena; and on the edges of the streams the tufts of the tall Pampa grass recall the feathers on a Pampa Indian’s spear. ”

“ During the inundation the river is exceedingly turbid, from the great quantity of vegetable substances and mud brought down by it:—the velocity of the stream in the higher and narrower parts of the river at first prevents their deposition, but as it approaches the lower lands, or pampas, where it overflows its bed, these substances are spread over the face of the land, forming a grey slimy soil, which, on the abatement of the waters, is found to increase vegetation in a surprising degree. ”

“ Even in spring-time it never shows more color than a tint of palest green, and the landscape which is dependent upon this grass for color is never more than “a gray and melancholy waste.” Unlike the soft, juicy, and succulent grasses of the well-watered portions of the United States, the tiny leaves of the grama grass are hard, stiff, and dry. I have often noticed that in grazing neither cattle nor horses are able to bite off the blades, but instead each leaf is pulled out of the tuft, seemingly by its root. ”

“ No breath stirred strong enough to lift the petals of the gorse-blossoms by the wall, or rustle the wayside plants. The only movement came from a field of long grass on the slope—one of the pattern of fields, newly-ploughed, short-turfed, or misted with green from the three-weeks-old corn springing a few inches high, a pattern that lay like a coverlet drawn over the rounded flank of the hill. And over that one field movement was busy—the rank grass was exactly the length, density, texture, to respond to what imperceptible breath there was, and that grass only. ”

“ The turf on a putting-green must be dense and low, and tough enough to stand a lot of rough usage. A combination of Rhode Island Bent and Creeping Bent is about the best thing for this purpose. To check up, just refer back to your schedule and see what it says regarding the qualities of these grasses.
The soil on a putting-green should be of a sandy nature. This keeps the grass stunted through lack of much food, and consequently better fits it for its purpose.
Never buy grass seed by the bushel. ”

“ Some such process of formation appears still to be going on in many parts of the pampas, where muddy streams and streamlets, the collections from the mountains in the south and of the rainy seasons, too sluggish to force a way through the level country, inundate the plains, and gradually deposit the alluvial sediment, together with a prodigious quantity of decomposed vegetable matter, in the swamps and morasses, until accumulations of fresh soil take place in sufficient quantity to throw off the waters again in some other direction. ”

“ The soil becomes now firmer, contains more clay than sand, and makes as good a wagon road from here to Chihuahua as if it were macadamized. The plain through which we travel is east and west, lined by mountains, and is 15 to 20 miles wide. The mountains are timbered with a few scanty cedars, and some pine trees; the geological formation is granitic and porphyritic. The grass becomes every day better, and looks as fresh as in spring. The so-called gramma grass, which grows here very fine, is especially liked by our animals. ”