REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST AND BOTANIST 199 
SESSIONAL PAPER No. 16 
permanent pasture mixtures, it has no superior and never should be omitted. It pro- 
duces, when closely fed, probably more actual food for stock than any other grass, and its 
season lasts except in very dry localities from early in the spring until hard frost. It is 
essentially a pasture grass, and produces but very little hay. 
Canada Blue Grass (Poa compressa, L.).—This grass is also known as ‘ Wire Grass’ 
and ‘ Flat-stemmed Meadow Grass.’ It produces a rather small crop of exceedingly 
heavy rich hay. When fed down, it reproduces itself rapidly and is almost as valuable as 
Kentucky Blue Grass. The seed of this grass is largely sold as lawn grass, but it is not 
nearly so well suited for this purpose as Kentucky Blue Grass, on account of a reddish 
tinge which it takes on when touched with frost or when affected by drought. It has not 
the same habit as Kentucky Blue Grass of spreading extensively by underground root 
shoots or stolons, and therefore does not form so rapidly a thick sod. 
Red Top (Agrostis vulgaris, Withg.).—This grass produces in damp soil a very large 
quantity of fine but not very rich hay. It is of special value in wet land, where it will stand 
more water than any other of the cultivated grasses. It is palatable to stock and should 
always be used in grass mixtures for low lands. It seeds freely and spreads rapidly. 
Timothy (Phleum pratense, L.).—This grass is too well known by Canadian farmers 
to require any special mention. When mixed with clover for hay, the Mammoth Red 
or late clover should be used, as these two plants come to maturity at the same time, 
while the Common Red Clover is about a week earlier than Timothy. 
SIMPSON’S TRUE-PERENNIAL RED CLOVER. 
(See Plate.) 
In the spring of 1897, I received from Mr. Walter Simpson, of Bay View, Prince 
Edward Island, some roots of a very interesting clover which he had found growing 
spontaneously on his farm. This clover has now been cultivated here in the experi- 
mental grass plots for six years, and has shown that it possesses many valuable agricul- 
tural characteristics. It is a long-lived perennial which spreads by copious underground 
stolons. Although not producing so much fodder as the Common and Mammoth Red 
Clovers—it has given as much as one and a-half tons of hay to the acre—it is much more 
persistent. Owing to its stoloniferous root system, it does not suffer, as those well 
known varieties do, from heaving and winter-killing. A plot of this clover one square 
rod in extent, was planted on April 23, 1901, by setting out root shoots in rows one 
foot apart, with the plants six inches apart in the rows. By June 7, there was a growth 
of three inches, and by July 26 the bed had an average height of four inches, many 
of the plants being in flower. This plot was not cut at mid-summer, and the seed was 
ripe by September 21. On July 3, 1902, the bed was a heavy mat of thick clover 
twelve inches high, with fine leaves and many large purple flowers, as shown in the plate 
herewith. The whole plot was saved for seed, which was ripe by the first week in 
October. Unfortunately, this clover has shown under cultivation the serious defect of 
maturing very little seed. It has, however, never been treated as the ordinary Red 
or Mammoth Clovers are when grown for seed, by being cut for hay in midsummer and 
the seed collected from the second crop. Under similar circumstances, the varieties 
above named also show this defect to some extent, as is mentioned by Professor W. J. 
Beal, in his ‘Grasses of North America.’ Next year the first crop will be cut as soon as 
the plants are well in flower, and the seed will be saved from the second crop. If it 
still shows the same partial sterility, an effort will be made to produce an improved form 
by hybridizing it with Common Red, Mammoth and other clovers. 
I am unable to come to a decision upon the exact botanical status of this clover. 
It does not answer in all respects with any known and described species of clover, but 
