66 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



field. Then sow some winter grain, such as oats, barley or rye. 

 Wheat is too late in maturing. The grain should be cut for hay 

 in the spring, and the land plowed again immediately and thoroughly 

 harrowed, as in the fall previous. Then every time the most forward 

 bunches of grass reach 4" to 6" in height, run over the land with 

 a heel-scrape or any other implement that shaves off the surface 

 of the soil. To be effective this shaving process must be so thorough 

 that every sprig of grass is cut. If this is kept up till October every 

 vestige of Johnson grass will be destroyed. It may come again 

 from seed next year, but the seeding plants may be killed, like any 

 other weed, by thorough cultivation. Care should be taken not to 

 let any of them get large enough to send out rootstocks before 

 destroying them. Some badly infested farms have been freed from 

 this pest by the above method. The usual practice is to take one 

 field at a time for this treatment, taking several years to extend the 

 work of eradication over the whole farm. With a rational system 

 of crop rotation, and the thorough working of the soil common 

 in the north of England and in many parts of this country, Johnson 

 grass would not be a pest, but a valuable adjunct to the list of farm 

 crops. The climate of the entire Johnson grass area permits at 

 least two crops a year to be grown on every acre of land. A crop 

 of winter grain, hay and one or two summer crops of cow-pea hay 

 or sorghum hay can be grown on the worst infested land, with little 

 or no interference from the grass, if the land is thoroughly plowed 

 and harrowed before planting each crop. Better than all, however, 

 on land adapted to it, and this includes nearly all the worst areas, 

 alfalfa can be sown on Johnson grass land with perfect success. 

 To do this the land should plowed and the rootstocks thoroughly 

 harrowed out early in the fall. If, after this, a good beating rain 

 comes to firm the soil, all the better. Then sow the alfalfa, at the 

 rate of 20 pounds of seed per acre, early enough in the fall for it to 

 get a good start before cold weather. The next summer cut it 

 promptly every time it gets high enough to make a fair crop of 

 hay. This treatment helps the alfalfa and greatly discourages the 

 Johnson grass. As alfalfa makes four or five crops of hay a year 

 in the South (six to nine in some places), and Johnson grass only 

 three, and as Johnson grass gradually declines in yield anyway, so 

 that it yields very little three or four years after the last plowing, 

 the alfalfa will, in a few years, be practically free frcfni the grass. 

 What little is left actually improves the quality of the alfalfa hay." 



