As This New Vegetation Is Better Adapted For Sheep And Goats In A Dry Country
Than Grass, The Boers Supplant The Latter By Imitating The Process
By Which Graminivorous Antelopes Have So Abundantly Disseminated
The Seed Of Grasses.
A few wagon-loads of mesembryanthemum plants, in seed,
are brought to a farm covered with a scanty crop
Of coarse grass,
and placed on a spot to which the sheep have access in the evenings.
As they eat a little every night, the seeds are dropped
over the grazing grounds in this simple way, with a regularity
which could not be matched except at the cost of an immense amount of labor.
The place becomes in the course of a few years a sheep-farm,
as these animals thrive on such herbage. As already mentioned,
some plants of this family are furnished with an additional contrivance
for withstanding droughts, viz., oblong tubers, which, buried deep enough
beneath the soil for complete protection from the scorching sun,
serve as reservoirs of sap and nutriment during those rainless periods
which recur perpetually in even the most favored spots of Africa. I have
adverted to this peculiarity as often seen in the vegetation of the Desert;
and, though rather out of place, it may be well - while noticing
a clever imitation of one process in nature by the Cape farmers -
to suggest another for their consideration. The country beyond
south lat. 18 Deg. abounds in three varieties of grape-bearing vines,
and one of these is furnished with oblong tubers every three or four inches
along the horizontal root.
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