The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses, by
Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar and C. Tadulinga Mudaliyar

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Title: A Handbook of Some South Indian Grasses

Author: Rai Bahadur K. Ranga Achariyar
C. Tadulinga Mudaliyar

Release Date: December 28, 2007 [EBook #24063]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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A HANDBOOK
OF
SOME SOUTH INDIAN GRASSES

BY
RAI BAHADUR K. RANGA ACHARIYAR, M.A., L.T.,
_Indian Agricultural Service, Agricultural College, Coimbatore, and
Fellow of the Madras University_

ASSISTED BY
C. TADULINGA MUDALIYAR, F.L.S.,
_Agricultural College, Coimbatore._

MADRAS:
PRINTED BY THE SUPERINTENDENT, GOVERNMENT PRESS.
1921

Price, 4 _rupees_ 8 _annas_

PREFACE

This book is intended to serve as a guide to the study of grasses of the
plains of South India. For the past few years I have been receiving
grasses for identification, almost every week, from the officers of the
Agricultural and Forest Departments and others interested in grasses.
The requirements of these men and the absence of a suitable book induced
me to write this book.

I have included in this book about one hundred grasses of wide
distribution in the plains of South India. Many of them occur also in
other parts of India. The rarer grasses of the plains and those growing
on the hills are omitted, with a view to deal with them separately.

The value of grasses can be realized from the fact that man can supply
all his needs from them alone, and their importance in agriculture is
very great, as the welfare of the cattle is dependent upon grasses.
Farmers, as a rule, take no interest in them, although profitable
agriculture is impossible without grasses. Very few of them can give the
names of at least half a dozen grasses growing on their land. They
neglect grasses, because they are