86 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



change the soil type. However, if the climate is all 

 right the soil may be made right. Heavy liming, prefer- 

 ably with ground and unburned limestone (carbonate of 

 lime), then manuring, are all that bluegrass requires to 

 make it succeeed. In Virginia it is a custom to turn 

 under a heavy crop of cowpeas before seeding to blue- 

 grass. The more nitrogen in the soil the better for this 

 crop ; it revels too in humus. It is not a poor-soil grass. 



One should prepare a fine, firm seedbed for bluegrass. 

 He can hardly harrow and firm his land too well. He 

 may sow in September with fall wheat or barley. This 

 mixture will give good results (sooner or later the blue- 

 grass will have almost complete possession) : Timothy, 

 15 pounds; Kentucky bluegrass, 10; meadow fescue, 5; 

 red clover, 7, or alsike clover, 6 pounds or, better, mix 

 them together and sow 8 pounds, little white clover, 2 

 pounds. Clovers are not well sown in the fall ; this mix- 

 ture can be sown early in April or in late March if the 

 ground can be gotten ready. Or the grasses may be sown 

 in September with wheat, a very thin seeding, or barley 

 or even rye, so it is sown very thin ; rye makes too many 

 leaves to be a first-rate nurse-crop for small grasses, and 

 the clovers added in the spring. I really prefer the 

 spring-sowing, as then the conditions can all be con- 

 trolled nicely. Late spring seeding is useless. Timothy 

 is the first grass to appear but sooner or later the blue- 

 grass will crowd that out. 



Mixture with Brome Grass. Really I should prefer 

 the brome grass mixture to that with timothy. Brome 

 grass is as easily set as timothy, so one gets good seed, 



