?93 



FIELD CROPS 



to six inches in length and a quarter to a third of an inch in 

 diameter. This spike is made up of many one-flowered 

 spikelets. The seed is about one twelfth of an inch long, 

 silvery gray in color, and usually loosely enclosed in the 



palea and flowering glume. It 



is easily removed from them in 

 threshing and cleaning, however, 

 and many of the seeds are com- 

 monly without a covering. 



372. Importance. In the 

 Northeastern and North Cen- 

 tral states, timothy is the most 

 important meadow grass, and 

 it is also largely used as past- 

 ure. It is of more or less im- 

 portance all over the country 

 except in the extreme South. 

 No other grass compares with it 

 in importance as a hay grass. 

 Other kinds of hay are sold to 

 some extent, but timothy is the 

 standard. Out of a total area 

 of 72,000,000 acres devoted to 

 the production of hay and other 

 forage in the United States in 

 1909, according to the Census 

 reports, timothy alone was grown on 14,675,000 acres, and 

 timothy and clover mixed on 19,536,000 acres. The only 

 other class of hay and forage which compared at all with 

 timothy in acreage was the combination of all wild, salt, 

 and prairie grasses, which totaled 16,868,000 acres. The 

 production of timothy hay amounted to 17,973,000 tons; of 

 timothy and clover mixed, 24,743,000 tons; and of wild, salt, 

 and prairie grasses, 18,117,000 tons. The estimated average 

 value per ton in the United States in 1917 was $18.33. 



Figure 99. — A head of timothy, the 

 moat common tame grass of the 

 United States. 



