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species occurring anywhere. Thus, from some elevated position in a large prairie, the eye takes in, at a glance, thousands of acres literally empurpled with the flowering spikes of several species of liatris; in other situations, where a depressed or flattened sur-face and clayey soil favor the continuance of moisture, a few spe-cies of yellow-flowered coreopsis occur in such profuse abundance as to tinge the entire surface with a golden burnish. This pecu-liarity of an aggregation of individuals of one or more species to something like an exclusive monopoly of certain localities, ob-tains even in regard to those plants which are the rarest and least frequently met with; for whenever one specimen was found, there generally occurred many more in the same immediate neighbor-hood."
After enumerating the principal species of Gramineae, Dr. Short adds: "All these grasses, in their young and tender states, are eagerly devoured by cattle. As they become harder and less succulent by age the coarser are rejected, and the more tender are sought for. Among these, I believe, the vilfa is a general fa-vorite, both for grazing and for hay. All of them, however, are cut promiscuously for this purpose, and when they occur, as fre-quently as they do, in large natural meadows, occupying the ground to the almost entire exclusion of other vegetables, they yield a productive return to the labor of the mower; and when well cured make excellent hay. Our horses which had never before been accustomed to any other than the cultivated grasses, ate this natural hay with great avidity. The quality of these grasses, both for pasture and mowing, is much improved by the burning of the prairies during the winter, which, destroying the dead and dry stems, affords a better and earlier bite in the spring, as well as a cleaner swath for the scythe; and by protecting certain por-tions of the prairie from the action of fire until the spring or early summer, vegetation is then so much retarded by a late burn, as the settlers call it, as to afford good pasturage throughout the latter part of the season."
To Dr. S. B. Mead, of Augusta, Hancock county, I am indebt-ed for a catalogue of the plants growing in that vicinity, and also for very numerous specimens. He has probably devoted more time and labor to the examination of Illinois plants than any other botanist, and his collections now form part of most of the principal herbaria of the world.