THE FORAGE AND FIBER CROPS IN AMERICA 



76. Advantages. Kentucky blue grass makes a compact sod 

 which stands a large amount of tramping and very close grazing 

 without injury. On lawns for which it is unexcelled the 



frequent and close cutting 

 apparently improves it. Its 

 leaves are fine, succulent, 

 palatable, and nutritious. 

 It is one of the earliest 

 grasses to start in the 

 spring and one of the 

 latest to grow in the fall. 

 In the more temperate 

 climates it makes excel- 

 lent winter pasture by 

 keeping live stock off it 

 for a while in the fall. 

 When thus dried standing 

 it is a formidable rival in 

 nutritive qualities of the 

 grasses of the sub-humid 

 regions. As a pasture, it 

 exceeds in palatability 

 with cattle, at least, red- 

 top, orchard grass, and timothy, and equals meadow fescue it is 

 probably exceeded by smooth brome grass. 



77. Disadvantages. The quantity of hay produced is small 

 and, contrary to the usual opinion, the author has found its hay 

 less palatable for cattle and horses than timothy or clover hay. 

 Under ordinary circumstances it is wiser to pasture off mature 

 Kentucky blue grass than to make it into hay. 



After seeding, it is a long time in taking possession of the 

 soil usually three years before anything like a good sod is 

 formed and it may continue to improve for 10 or 15 years. 

 This is in part due to the very poor germinative power of 



Kentucky blue grass taken at Cornell Station 

 June 14. Plant grown from a single seed is 

 2 1 months old. Has gone out of bloom. High- 

 est culms 30 inches; clump 30 inches wide. 

 Compare with Canada blue grass. 



