108 GRASSES AND HOW TO GROW THEM. 



scatter more than three or four pounds per acre at 

 one time. The period required to transform pasture 

 thus will of course vary greatly^ but the transforming 

 work is usually done in a few years. There are, how- 

 ever, localities which include wide areas, as on certain 

 of the ranges, especially those of the south and west, 

 where such transformation cannot be made, owing to 

 the aridity of the conditions. 



.When blue grass is newly introduced into any locality 

 it may be established readily in by-places with but little 

 expense, if the seed grown even on limited areas is 

 saved by means of a hand stripper and scattered over 

 these as soon as it has been secured. Seed thus sown 

 has strong germinating power. 



On certain soils that are springy in character, blue 

 grass will come in and take possession, when the forest 

 is cut away. These soils are usually composed of muck 

 and more commonly they are located at the base of a 

 liill, or lie between land that on either side is more or 

 less elevated. Seepage waters come into these 

 depressions, of course, from subterranean sources, and 

 rising from below saturate them to excess at certain sea- 

 sons of the year. At other seasons they can be grazed. 

 Partly through the action of frost and partly because of 

 treading by animals grazing on them, these lands as- 

 sume the form of innumerable hillocks resembling ant 

 hills. These lands usually furnish a large amount of 

 grazing. If, liowever, the seepage waters coming down 

 from the higher land were sufficiently intercepted by a 

 drain or drains skirting the same at the base, and run- 

 ning parallel to them, the capacity of such grazing lands 



