76 FODDER AND PASTURE PLANTS. 
FINE-LEAVED SHEEP’S FESCUE (Festuca ovina L., var. 
tenuifolia Sibth.) 
This variety, as a rule, is of lower stature than ordinary Sheep’s 
Fescue. The leaves are extremely fine and hairlike. It is distin- 
guished from Sheep’s Fescue by its awnless flowers. 
It has no special agricultural value but could be used in mixtures 
for lawns. 
. HARD FESCUE (Festuca ovina L. var. duriuscula (L.) Koch. 
Other Latin name: Festuca duriuscula L. 
Hard Fescue is only a vigorous variety of Sheep’s Fescue, with 
which it agrees in all essential points. It is a strongly tufted peren- 
nial with all its leaves rolled up like Sheep’s Fescue, but the leaves 
of the basal shoots are longer, thicker and firmer in texture—hence 
the name Hard Fescue. The panicles and spikelets are a little 
larger, but no fixed marks can be given to distinguish this plant 
from ordinary Sheep’s Fescue. It has about the same geographical 
distribution and value. It is adapted to sandy soil but should not 
be grown unless the land is too poor for better grasses. The basal 
leaves being rather long, it may be used to a limited extent on poor 
land as a bottom grass for hay mixtures. 
The seed of Hard Fescue is very like that of Sheep’s Fescue 
but often has a bluish tint. 
For they counte this the moste juste cause of warre when anye people holde the a piece of grounde 
voyde and vacaunt to no good nor profitable use, kepyng other from the use and possession of it, the 
whiche notwithstanding by the lawe of nature ought thereof to be nouryshed and relieved —Thomas 
More, Utopia, 1515. 
The greené grass, 
So small, so thick, so short, so fresh of hue, 
That most like to green wool, I wot, it was. 
—Chaucer, The Flower and the Leaf, 1560. 
It is less creditable for a man to remain in the house than to attend to things out of doors. The 
pursuit of agriculture is at once a means of enjoyment and of increasing resources; and it is also an 
exercise for the body, such as to strengthen it for discharging the duties that become a man of honour- 
able birth. For though it offers blessings in the greatest plenty, it does nor permit us to take them in 
idleness, but requires us to accustom ourselves to endure the colds of winter and the heats of summer; 
to those whom it exercises in manual labor it gives an increase of strength, and in such as only oversee 
the cultivation of it, it produces a manly vigor by requiring them to rise early in the morning and 
forcing them to move about with activity—Xenophon, The Economist, 434-355, B.C. 
