64 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



time it makes fairly good hay when cut green. It should 

 always be cut for hay before the seed forms;- else it is 

 almost criminal to sell it or move it about the country. 

 But there are places where Johnson grass is profitable. 

 It thrives in the dry plains of Texas, and makes much 

 pasturage and hay on \vhich cattle are fed. It has a 

 curious need of being plowed up now and then, else it 

 becomes sod-bound and the roots too close to the sur- 

 face to thrive. When this occurs it is only necessary 

 to plow the land and harrow it well as though one were 

 about to destroy the plants entirely and presto ! there 

 springs up a new, fresh stand which is soon as thick as 

 ever. 



In order to keep Johnson grass productive one must 

 get some sort of legume to growing with it. On suitable 

 lands alfalfa is doubtless the best legume for this pur- 

 pose. Sometimes alfalfa not only holds its own but 

 actually causes Johnson grass to disappear ; in other soils 

 Johnson grass in a few years gets the upper hand of 

 alfalfa. 



It is sometimes said that Johnson grass enriches land. 

 If the field on which it grows is kept mowed or eaten 

 off by animals it can hardly fail rapidly to deplete fer- 

 tility, since it gathers no nitrogen from the air and in 

 fact nothing except what it takes from the soil. Sugar 

 planters bitterly deplore the presence of Johnson grass 

 in their fields, and one has declared to me that the labor 

 cf cultivated Ltigar cane was fully $20 per acre more in 

 fields infested with it. I can not, therefore, advise its 

 sowing anywhere that cultivation may sometimes be 

 desired and yet it is probably the very best hay grass 



