38 GRASSES AND FORAGE PLANTS. 



to Timothy and clover, and because it is more difficult to cut 

 and cure." 



The same writer says : " Any time in the winter, when 

 the snow is on the ground, sow broadcast from three to four 

 quarts of clean seed to the acre. With the spring the seeds 

 germinate and are very fine in the sprouts, and delicate. No 

 stock should be allowed for the first year, nor until the grass 

 seeds in June, for the first time in the second year. The best 

 plan is to turn on your stock when the seed ripens in June. 

 Graze off the grass, then allow the fall growth and graze all 

 winter, taking care never to feed the grass closely at any time." 



Another eminent cattle breeder speaking of this grass, says : 

 " Perennial grasses are the true basis of agriculture, in the 

 highest condition of that best employment for man. Grasses 

 which are not perennial, are of immense value, especially as 

 one of the shifts in the ordhiary rotation of crops, suited to 'the 

 agriculture of the great upper, or northerly portion of our con- 

 tinent, all of it above the cotton line. But it is the grasses 

 which are perpetual, that I chiefly allude to, and among these, 

 emphatically the blue grass, as it is called in the regions where 

 it flourishes most. Whoever has limestone land, has blue grass ; 

 whoever has blue grass, has the basis of all agricultural pros- 

 perity ; and that man, if he have not the finest horses, cattle 

 and sheep, has no one to blame but himself. Others, in other 

 circumstances, may do well ; he can hardly avoid doing well, if 

 he will try." 



By reference to a taljle on a subsequent page, containing the 

 results of the recent investigations of Prof. Way, the distin- 

 guished chemist of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, 

 it will be seen how inferior this grass is when green, to Timothy, 

 for instance, in all the nutritive, flesh-forming, and especially in 

 the fat-forming principles which contribute so largely to the 

 development and support of the whole animal system. The 

 reader is referred to that table, and to another following it, con- 

 taining analyses of these plants when dried and freed from 

 water, and to the explanatory remarks on the nutritive princi- 

 ples of plants, which precede those tables. 



Blue Grass, or Wire Grass, (^poa compressa.') Stems 

 ascending, flattened, the uppermost joint near the middle, 

 leaves short, bluish green, panicle dense and contracted, ex- 



