523 



Fahr. ir the shade and in January it gets down to -31 Fahr. 

 The average rainfall for 33 years is 282 mm. 



Mr. Bogdan's opinion of this M. falcata is that it will 

 become an important forage plant in all such sections of 

 Russia where the summers are hot and dry and the winters cold 

 and with little or no snow. 



A second specialty of Mr. Bogdan is the selection of 

 Agropyron cristatum and in this he has been almost more suc- 

 cessful even than with with M. falcata. He has about 15 dis- 

 tinct strains, some tall, some low, some fit for very dry 

 places, others for moister places and he is still getting bet- 

 ter types. This grass has been proved such a success in south 

 Russia that the farmers prefer it to the ordinary alfalfa, for 

 it is far more drouth resistant, does not freeze out and gives 

 an early crop of fine hay. The sub-species, A. desertorum, 

 can be mov/n in early June. The commercial part of the growing 

 has been turned over to the local Zemtsvo Agricultural 

 Society, which has 70 desiatines in this grass and they have 

 an order on hand for 1,000 pood from the Kharkoff Agricultural 

 Society. It sells at Krassny Koot for 8 Roubles per pood and 

 Mr. Bogdan stated that we could obtain perhaps 20 poods yet of 

 this year's seed. This seed is of course composed of all 

 strains and perhaps some few other grasses in between, but it 

 is all right for general purposes. 



Besides these two main crops Mr. Bogdan works with 

 Agropyron repens and A. ramosum. Of the first he had selected 

 some types that give a wonderfully good stand on low places, 

 which are inundated in the spring, and of the latter he has 

 some very strong growing forms, fit for stony lands. Mr. 

 Bogdan is very enthusiastic about A. repens, which he says 

 exists in as many sub-races as A. cristatum does. Then he 

 also keeps his eyes open for promising wild plants and has a 

 number of various things under observation which however I 

 could not see, as everything was cleaned off by winds and 

 frost. He also thinks that among the many species of Astra- 

 galus there are some fit to be grown as forage plants. He 

 invited me to come back toward the end of June, as everything 

 is at its best then in the south Volga regions. 



Mr. Bogdan also found the genuine Medicago media Litv. 

 which is quite distinct from M. media of cultivation; it 

 occurs in the southern part of the Astrakhan Territory near 

 the salty lakes of Kamish-Samarski in Turgaisky and Uralsky 

 counties. He donated me a herbarium specimen, but the few 

 seeds he collected had been sown already; later on perhaps he 

 could send us some. The plant is of slender growth and has by 

 no means the promise of a successful forage plant, like M. 

 falcata, M. coerulea and M. glutinosa have. 



