92 FODDER AND PASTURE PLANTS. 
perhaps because the types now grown have rather poor foliage on 
the stems. 
Pasture: It is of little value for pasture, as the second growth 
is poor. 
When sown alone, ten to fifteen pounds of good seed should be 
used to the acre. No advantage in yield is gained by seeding more 
thickly on dry soils; on the contrary, it is apt to lessen the yield in 
succeeding years. 
Seed: It is ready to cut for seed when the spikelets are of a 
greenish-straw colour, which stage is reached, under normal conditions, 
three to four weeks after flowering. It can be cut with a binder, 
cured like Timothy and threshed in a grain thresher. 
Quality of seed: The seed is bright straw-coloured, from a 
third to half an inch long, awnless or with a short, straight awn at 
the tip. 
WESTERN WHEAT GRASS (Agropyron occidentale Scribn.) 
Other Latin name: Agropyron Smithii Rydb. 
Other English names: Colorado Blue-stem, Blue-joint, Alkali Grass. 
Western Wheat Grass is strongly perennial with a creeping root- 
stock similar to that of Couch Grass. The plants do not grow in 
tufts, like Western Rye Grass, but form an open sod with scattered 
stems and leafy shoots like Couch Grass. The whole plant is bluish 
green which accounts for the names Blue-stem and _ Blue-joint. 
The stems are from one to four feet high and rather stout. The 
leaves are comparatively long, firm in texture, flat, or in dry localities 
rolled together. The inflorescence is strongly flattened, broader and 
denser than that of Western Rye Grass. The spikelets are about 
twice as long and contain a greater number of flowers—generally 
about eight. In a spikelet of Western Rye the two lowest glumes 
are about as long as the whole spikelet, whereas in Western Wheat 
they are about half as long. 
Western Wheat Grass is indigenous to Western Canada from 
Saskatchewan to the Rocky Mountains. In the United States it 
extends westward from Michigan and Kansas. 
