I've had grass on the mind lately anyway. And no, I don't mean "grass" as hippie argot would have it, but the true grasses--the species that belong to the Poaceae, not the Cannabaceae, family. With May now upon us, my mind drifts to memories of late spring in Wisconsin, with its long days, rain showers, and frenetic green grass growth. By contrast, many of the wild grasses here in central California, unless they enjoy the shady protection of an oak tree, have already pretty much wound things up for the year. Resigning to the reality of the warm and rainless months ahead, they have set seed and are obligingly on their way to dormancy. While most of the Midwestern grasses were patiently hibernating through the below-freezing temperatures and snowdrifts, those here were taking advantage of the rainfall and cool temperatures of the winter. From a good vantage point, one can now see the result of several months' growth. The shimmering yellows and pale greens of the mature grass fields convey a subtle but stunning kind of beauty that I love about May here--but things will only get drier and deader until the winter rains. So this is the time of year when I think of grasses going, as it were, in two different directions in the two different places that I consider "home."
Without any further ado, an excerpt from Mr. Ingalls' oft-quoted 1872 article, "Bluegrass":
Next in importance to the divine profusion of water, light, and air, those great physical facts which render existence possible, may be reckoned the universal beneficence of grass. Exaggerated by tropical heats and vapors to the gigantic cane congested with its saccharine secretion, or dwarfed by polar rigors to the fibrous hair of northern solitudes, embracing between these extremes the maize with its resolute pennons, the rice plant of the southern swamps, the wheat, rye, barley, oats, and other cereals, no less than the humbler verdure of hillside, pasture, and prairie in the temperate zone, grass is the most widely distributed of all vegetable beings, and is at once the type of our life and the emblem of our mortality. Lying in the sunshine among the buttercups and dandelions of May, scarcely higher in intelligence than the minute tenants of that mimic wilderness, our earliest recollections are of grass; and when the fitful fever is ended, and the foolish wrangle of the market and forum is closed, grass heals over the scar which our descent into the bosom of the earth has made, and the carpet of the infant becomes the blanket of the dead.As he reflected upon the brevity of human life, grass has been the favorite symbol of the moralist, the chosen theme of the philosopher. "All flesh is grass," said the prophet; "My days are as the grass," sighed the troubled patriarch; and the pensive Nebuchadnezar, in his penitential mood, exceeded even these, and, as the sacred historian informs us, did eat grass like an ox.Grass is the forgiveness of nature--her constant benediction. Fields trampled with battle, saturated with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon, grow green again with grass, and carnage is forgotten. Streets abandoned by traffic become grass-grown like rural lanes, and are obliterated. Forests decay, harvest perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immortal. Beleaguered by the sullen hosts of winter, it withdraws into the impregnable fortress of its subterranean vitality, and emerges upon the first solicitation of spring. Sown by the winds, by wandering birds, propagated by the subtle horticulture of the elements which are its ministers and servants, it softens the rude outlines of the world. Its tenacious fibres hold the earth in its place, and prevent its soluble components from washing into the wasting sea. It invades the solitude of the deserts, climbs the inaccessible slopes and forbidding pinnacles of mountains, modifies climates, and determines the history, character, and destiny of nations. Unobtrusive and patient, it has immortal vigor and aggression. Banished from the thoroughfare and the field, it bides its time to return, and when vigilance is relaxed, or the dynasty has perished, it silently resumes the throne from which it has been expelled, but which it never abdicates. It bears no blazonry or bloom to charm the senses with fragrance or splendor, but its homely hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose. It yields no fruit in earth and air, and yet should its harvest fail for a single year, famine would depopulate the world.
I'll try to get back to trees and woody agriculture in future posts, although I have a few items of note regarding some new developments in the "grass farming" scene. And since I'm talking about grass, I might as well mention that the photograph at the masthead of this blog is of ripening heads of triticale (a wheat-rye hybrid) from my backyard garden. It's delicious.
