PASTURE GRASSES 75 



And yet there are many splendid native grasses that 

 root deep. Bluestem (Ogropyron repens) is one of our 

 native western grasses, better than timothy, adapted to 

 dry soils in the Northwest. So of the great bunch grass 

 of Washington, Oregon and Idaho (Atnropyron diver- 

 gens) ; it has promise for dry lands but nothing that 

 I know is adapted to the dry, hot Southwest but annual 

 grasses, as wheat, sorghum and the Kaffir-corns. 



GRASSES FOR PASTURE. 



There is a difference in the requirements of pasture 

 and meadow. Meadows are left undisturbed by ani- 

 mals; they are mown off once or twice during the year 

 and then left to grow up again. Pastures are usually 

 fed off nearly constantly all during the growing season, 

 and even more or less through the winter season. Some 

 grasses are especially adapted to being so fed off: others 

 are not. Timothy, easily the first of meadow grasses, 

 soon disappears under close pasturing. Even rank John- 

 son grass succumbs to close pasturing. Little sheep fes- 

 cue would hardly make enough mowing to be gathered 

 with the rake, and yet it yields well as a pasture grass. 

 Kentucky bluegrass, the almost universal pasture grass 

 of America, is a poor hay grass, yet it has made 500 

 pounds of beef from one acre in Virginia. A good pas- 

 ture grass is not injured by being tread upon by animals' 

 hoofs. It thickens itself and heals over scars, grows up 

 cheerfully when eaten down and yields tender, palatable 

 nutritious herbage. In America it is common to con- 

 sider a pasture a permanent thing. Some grasses im- 

 prove with age, with the accumulation of a "sod," a 



