280 Practical Farming 



this mixture a summer and winter pasture can easily be 

 maintained in the South. This grass will not stand the 

 winters north of Virginia, and on its northern hmit it 

 assumes the character of a pest to wheat growers, and does 

 not have the value that it has in the South. From central 

 Georgia south it attains great value as a meadow grass, 

 as it can be mown several times during the summer. 

 Owing to the scarcity of seed, Bermuda grass is commonly 

 grown from cuttings of the running stems, commonly 

 called roots in the South. The land is well prepared in 

 the spring, and the stems are run through a feed cutter 

 set to cut rather long. Furrows are marked out and the 

 cuttings scattered along these and covered with a small 

 plow and then rolled. These furrows should be about 

 two feet apart, and the grass will spread over the entire 

 surface the first summer. 



As a pasture grass the Bermuda has the great advantage 

 that it will grow on the most sandy soil, and is perfectly 

 indifferent to the hot sun and drought. In fact it will not 

 grow in the shade at all, and hence is not adapted to shady 

 places. But it furnishes the best of pasture when other 

 grasses are burnt up and worthless, and it is adapted to 

 every kind of soil. On a sandy soil it is not hard to 

 eradicate it if necessary, as it can be plowed off entirely 

 from such a soil in great sheets and raked up and hauled 

 off. But from a strong clay soil its eradication is a diffi- 

 cult matter. In fact on such a soil, the pasture is greatly 

 improved by a spring plowing, harrowing, and rolling to 

 cure the hide-bound condition that it may get into. 



The great value of this grass in the South is gradually 

 being understood, and if it were more used, the South 



