RED FESCUE. 73 
Habits of growth: Red Fescue does not start so early in spring 
as does Sheep’s Fescue. Its nutritive value is highest at flowering 
time, as the basal leaves dry up or get hard and unpalatable soon 
after that. It recovers quickly after being cut or pastured and de- 
velops numerous new leaves from the underground rootstocks. For 
this reason it makes a fairly good bottom grass in hay mixtures. 
Agricultural yalue: Although its feeding value is rather low, 
Red Fescue has some qualities that make it especially fitted for 
pastures and lawns. It stands tramping and close cutting well and 
develops firm and lasting mats of tough sod which serve as soil 
binders on sandy or gravelly land. Dwarf varieties of extra fine 
texture are cultivated and the seed saved for lawns. 
Seed: The seed of Red Fescue is commonly gathered from wild 
plants. It is straw-coloured, often with a red or violet tint, and is 
generally a little longer than Sheep’s Fescue seed. It weighs from 
ten to fifteen pounds per bushel. 
Here's too small a pasture for such store of muttons——Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, 
Act I, Sc. I., 1591. 
The seed is long buried and hidden in the earth; little by little it comes to maturity. But if it 
bear an ear before its stem is knit, it is imperfect, and is only a plant of the garden of Adonis.—Epictetus 
Maxims, No. 369, (ist century A.D.) 
Who soweth in rain, he shall reap it with tears, 
Who soweth in harms, he is ever in fears: 
Who soweth ill seed, or defraudeth his land, 
Hath eye-sore abroad, with a corsie at hand. 
—Thomas Tusser, Five Hundreth Pointes of Husbandrie, 1557. 
There is naught which earth displays with intent to deceive, but in clear and simple language 
stamped with the seal of truth she informs us what sbe can and cannot do. Thus it has ever seemed 
to me that earth is the best discoverer of true honesty, in that she offers all her stores of knowledge 
in a shape accessible to the learner, so that he who runs may read. Here it is not open to the sluggard, 
as in other arts, to put forward the plea of ignorance or lack of knowledge, for all men know that 
earth, if kindly treated, will repay in kind. No! there is no witness against a coward soul so clear as 
that of husbandry; since no man ever yet persuaded himself that he could live without the staff of 
life. He therefore that is unskilled in other money-making arts and will not dig, shows plainly he is 
minded to make his living by picking and stealing, or by begging alms, or else he writes himself down 
a very fool—Xenophon, The Economist, 434-355 B.C. 
