282 Practical Farming 



the sun even on clay soil. Sown on a southern lawn the 

 ever-present Bermuda soon drives it to the shade places 

 under the trees which the Bermuda avoids. 



This grass {Poa compressa) is also known 

 Blue Grass ^^ Virginia blue grass. It has a great deal 



of the habit of the Bermuda grass, creeping 

 by surface and underground stems. It will grow on 

 thinner soil than the Kentucky blue grass will, and will 

 also thrive on sandy soils. In many parts of Virginia it 

 has become a great pest to wheat growers. It has value 

 as a pasture grass and as a sod-forming grass to prevent the 

 washing of steep hills, but where the Kentucky blue grass 

 thrives it has Uttle value. On thin hill lands it can be 

 profitably used as a sheep pasture, and will make a perman- 

 ent pasture on lands too thin and poor for other grasses, 

 and it thrives in all parts of the country north and south. 

 Quite an interest has of late been taken in 

 exas ^j^jg grass in the South as a winter-growing 



grass. It is botanically Poa arachnijera. 

 Its specific name comes from the spider-web-Uke hairs 

 attached to the seeds, which make them difficult to sow. 

 It has the same creeping habit as the Bermuda, and is 

 valuable as a mixture with that grass, since, while it burns 

 badly in summer it grows green in winter when the Ber- 

 muda is brown. In fact one man in North Carolina said 

 to me that he found that the colder the weather the greener 

 the grass grew. Whether it will ever be of any value 

 North is yet to be demonstrated, but the general opinion 

 is that it is best adapted to southern conditions and a 

 mild winter climate. This grass is a native of western 

 Louisiana and eastern Texas, and it is claimed that it 



