PASTURE AND FORAGE CROPS 



161 



largely overlooked, owing to the ranker growing 

 Guinea and Para grasses, which are there so abun- 

 dant. Bermuda grass is sometimes grown from seed, 

 but the vitality of the seed is not always good, and 

 a stand is often hard to secure in this way. It is a 

 much more certain method to plant bits of sod. 

 These small pieces are dropped into every other fur- 

 row, when the land is plowed. After plowing the 

 land is smoothed with the harrow, and unless the 

 weather is unusually dry a perfect stand will be se- 

 cured. The tufts of grass which spring from these 

 pieces of sod soon spread and completely cover the 

 ground. 



Johnson Grass (^Sorghum Halepense). — This coarse- 

 growing grass was introduced into the South many 

 years ago as a forage plant. It 

 has proved to be a pernicious 

 weed. It spreads by fleshy 

 underground stems, which can- 

 not be killed by any ordinary 

 cultivation and which are easily 

 carried to different parts of the 

 field by plows and cultivators. 

 It grows so rapidly that it 

 quickly smothers crojDS, and 

 when present in a field neces- 

 sitates double the usual amount 

 of cultivation. 



There are large areas in cen- 

 tral Alabama and Mississippi 

 where cotton growing has been 

 given up on account of the presence of this pest. It is 



Johnson Grass. 



M 



