SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN THE SOUTH. 19 



warfare which the planter had to wage with the Bermuda 

 grass. Not unfrequently the grass was the victor, and many 

 considerable districts were completely abandoned to its sway. 

 It is now thoroughly appreciated by the best cultivators of 

 the South. " I think it," says Col. A. J. Lane, a successful 

 cotton-planter, " very doubtful whether there is an acre of 

 land thoroughly set in Bermuda grass (if the proper use is 

 made of it) that is not worth more than any crop that can 

 be grown upon it." It will flourish on dry and almost barren 

 lands. It will hold its place indefinitely. Its nutritive power 

 is said to surpass that of blue grass ; it containing, according 

 to the analysis of Dr. Ravenel, fourteen per cent of the albu- 

 minoids. Its yield in weight far surpasses that of clover. 

 Although it produces no seed, it is easily propagated by sowing 

 broadcast pieces of the roots obtained from the turf, washed free 

 from the dirt, and chopped fine by a cutting machine. The 

 grass, when grazed, forms a very compact sod, which, turned 

 in by the plow, has extraordinary manurial value. The re- 

 sults of cultivating thirty acres of land well set with this 

 grass are thus stated by Colonel Lane : 



" First crop : cotton, half stand, owing to the mass of undecomposed 

 sod ; eighteen hundred pounds of seed cotton per acre. 



" Second crop : cotton, two thousand eight hundred pounds seed 

 cotton per acre. 



" Third crop : corn, sixty-five bushels per acre ; corn manured with 

 cotton seed. 



" Fourth crop : wheat, forty-two bushels per acre. 



" The average product of this land, without the sod, would have 

 been not more than one hundred pounds of seed cotton, fifteen to twenty 

 bushels of corn, and eight to ten of wheat." 



According to Mr. Howard, by turning up Bermuda grass 

 land by the plow, and sowing blue grass and white clover, a 

 pasture can be produced capable of sustaining stock summer 

 and winter. As the Bermuda grass dies down in autumn, the 

 blue grass and white clover appear ; the reverse occurring in 

 the heat of summer. 



We will conclude our extracts from this writer with one 

 more directly pertinent to our subject. 



