100 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



supplants. It does not grow well with orchard grass 

 since animals eat the bluegrass too greedily, leaving the 

 orchard grass untouched. To get the most possible out 

 of it do not turn animals on the pasture before the grass 

 is strong and affording a full bite, and do not during 

 hot weather graze it down to the bare earth. Blue- 

 grass finds summer heats and drouth its worst enemies. 

 It enriches soils on which it grows by accumulating a sod 

 rich in nitrogen. 



Kentucky bluegrass varies in worth according to the 

 soil on which it grow r s. One can hardly get the maximum 

 yield from his soil sown to bluegrass because it is rather 

 a shallow feeder and dries out the soil rapidly. Never- 

 theless, as it needs no cultivation, enriches land and prop - 

 erly managed affords much excellent grazing that makes 

 the highest quality of animal life, one should reflect well 

 before he plows up a bluegrass pasture, and should con- 

 sider whether he is not seriously at fault in not estab- 

 lishing a new one. It pays as well to manure a blue- 

 grass sod as any other land on the farm. There is 

 no leaching away of fertility put on bluegrass. 



Canada -Bluegrass (Poa compressa). It sometimes 

 seems to me that this grass should really bear the name 

 "bluegrass," as it is of a dark, bluish color, much more of 

 a blue than the common Kentucky bluegrass. It has 

 many common names, wire grass, Virginia bluegrass and 

 flat-stemmed bluegrass. It is a shorter, more slender 

 grass than Kentucky bluegrass and more nearly ever- 

 green. Its stems do not dry up as do those of blue- 

 grass, but remain green for a considerable time. It is 



