HAY AND PASTURE CROPS 115 



Other Varieties of Grass. — Kentucky blue grass, red- 

 top, orchard grass, Johnson grass, rye grass, etc., are other 

 important and valuable grass crops for special conditions. 

 Space here is too limited to discuss them. Bulletins from 

 your state experiment station, or from the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, giving full information about 

 these grasses, may be secured by writing for them. 



Questions: 



1. Why is timothy such a popular hay crop? 



2. Tell what you can about brome grass. 



3. Why are the grass crops mentioned in this lesson of less value 

 than timothy? 



Arithmetic: 



1. If one sows 6 lbs. of red clover seed worth 15c. per lb. and 8 

 lbs. of timothy seed worth 6c. per lb., how much does the seed cost 

 per acre? 



• 2. If an acre of timothy produces 1>^ tons of hay, how long will 

 it last a horse fed at the rate of 15 lbs. per day? 



3. It takes 15 lbs. of brome grass seed to seed an acre. How 

 much does it cost at 18c. per lb? 

 Exercises: 



1. Dig up and bring to school a clover plant, alfalfa plant, and 

 timothy plant. Make sure you can identify each. Make a list of 

 the special diflferences of each. 



2. Gather samples (a complete plant) of each of the following 

 kinds of clover: Medium red, Alsike, White, White sweet clover. 

 Can you tell them all apart? How? 



3. Gather two handfuls of green clover at haying time. Lay one 

 sample out in the sun with no protection from sun or dew or rain. 

 Hang the other in a shady, airy place where dew and rain and sun 

 can not reach it. Watch these closely for two or three days and see 

 which makes the better hay. 



4. Dig up carefully several good strong clover or alfalfa plants 

 and see if you can find the nodules of the nitrogen-gathering bacteria, 

 as shown in Figure 45. 



5. Bring to school leaves of Medium red, Alsike and White 

 clover and alfalfa. I^eam to tell them apart. 



6. Gather heads of several different kinds of the common grasses 

 grown for hay or pasture in your community. Learn to know at sight 

 timothy, bromus, red top and blue grass. 



