118 GRASSES AND HOW TO GROW THEM. 



thrives best on rich soils, alhivial in character, such as 

 is found in river bottoms and in drained depressions 

 into which deposit has been washed from the higher 

 L^nds. It is much better adapted to sandy lands than 

 to stiff clays, but in the latter it will grow when once it 

 gets a start. It may be made to cover any of the soils 

 so depleted in fertility that their cultivation has been 

 abandoned, providing other forms of growth, as broom 

 sedge and bushes are not allowed to crowd and over- 

 shadow the grass while it is becoming set. It may be 

 made to bind shifting sands so light that they will blow, 

 though of course from the shifting character of these it 

 is not easy to get the plants started. It will also tolerate 

 considerable alkali in the soil, insomuch that on soils too 

 alkaline to grow other grasses, it will yield some profit 

 grown as pasture and on subsoils laid bare through the 

 removal of the top soils in filling gullies, it will grow, 

 providing they are given a light dressing of farmyard 

 manure. The service that it may be made to render in 

 turning those gullied soils and worn lands into profita- 

 ble grazing and in preventing them from washing in the 

 future, is, in the aggregate, beyond all computation. 

 Place in the Rotation. — Strictly speaking, Bermuda 

 grass is not a rotation plant. Because of the difliculty 

 found in eradicating this grass and because of its con- 

 tinuity in growth, its highest use is foimd in permanent 

 pastures. But it can be and is used in rotations. For 

 instance, it may be followed by corn, cotton or wheat 

 or other grains, growing these in some sort of alternjition 

 for a limited number of years. Those who grow it 

 thus and who w^ish to lay down these lands to Ber- 



