52 



Tlicre i« a small variety of corn known as Dixie corn, the ears of 

 which are not larger than the fingers. This corn usually yields from six 

 to eight and even as high as fifteen ears to the stalk. The grains are very 

 small and the corn matures quickly. If this corn should be sown upon 

 rich land and cut at the time the grains are in the dough state, it would 

 make a mass of forage highly nutritious and would serve the purpose ot 

 both grain and hay. The stalks are so small that they may be cut with 

 a reaper or mower and put up in the same way as the corn shocks of 

 ordinary corn when cut in the fall. The sowing and saving of this Dixie 

 corn for forage deserve the consideration of Tennessee farmers. Stubble 

 land could be employed for the growing of this crop. 



CRAB GRASS— (Pa /I !an>i sanguim/e.)— (Hay and Pasture.) 

 This is a hardy annual grass, attractive because of its digitate form 

 of inflorescence. It is indigenous to the soil and troublesome in the cul- 

 tivation of other crops when clover or peas have not been used in the 

 systems of rotation. In the early settlement of Tennessee it was far more 

 abundant in the cultivated fields than at present. This grass comes up 



spontaneously. It grows with 

 the greatest luxuriance upon 

 stubble fields and in corn- 

 fields in low situations. It 

 makes an excellent pasture 

 from June until October in 

 the latitude of Tennessee and 

 even to a later date when 

 heavy frosts do not occur. Its 

 most intimate associate is 

 green foxtail {Selaria viridis), 

 which is totally worthless 

 when it begins to seed. Crab- 

 grass is never sown. When 

 cultivation ceases it takes pos- 

 session of the land. It is 

 justly regarded as an excellent 

 pasture grass but it forms no 

 sward. It sends out numerous 

 stems, however, branching at 

 the base. Crab grass serves a 

 useful purpose in stock hus- 

 bandry all over the south. It 

 comes on at a time when northern farmers are compelled to resort to 

 soiling crops in order to supply green food to their milch cows. A dairy- 

 man from Ohio said to the writer upon seeing a field of crab grass grow- 

 ing to the height of three feet, that it was the most valuable summer 

 grass for the dairy he had ever seen. It grows very rank after oats 

 and, cut when in Hower, often yields more forage than the oat crop that 

 precedes it. Sometimes as much as two tons of crab grass hay to the 

 acre have been cut within forty days after the oat crop has been re- 



Cra/> Crass— Panicum san,s^uina/r. 

 Upper le.nf and inflorescence. :{. Portion of 

 one of tlie racemes, o. .Spikelet, front 

 view. (>. .Spikelet, .side view. 



