PERENNIAL FORAGE GRASSES 



99 



have been made to sow bur clover (Medicago maculata Willd.) 

 or hairy vetch on Bermuda sod in September (using disk har- 

 row to open the soil) with rather indifferent success. A 

 variety known as St. Lucie is said to be more frost-resistant, 

 and hence, on account of keeping green longer, is preferred 

 as a lawn grass. It is also said to be more easily exterminated. 

 Bermuda grass thrives upon a great variety of soils, but is 

 probably best adapted to sandy soils. 



104. Value. Bermuda grass is liked by domestic animals 

 either as pasture or as hay. Analyses also indicate that it is 

 highly nutritious. While on fertile soils it may be cut two or 

 three times in a season and may under favorable conditions 

 yield two to four tons of hay per acre, its habit of growth best 

 fits it for grazing. For this purpose, it is the standard grass in 

 the cotton states. Bermuda grass and Japan clover are pre- 

 eminently the pasture plants of the South. Bermuda grass 

 is, however, less extensively cultivated than would seem to be 

 indicated by its excellent qualities. This may be due to the 

 high price of the seed, or to the fact that the plant takes such 

 a strong hold upon the soil as to make it unsuited to short 

 rotations. Where it seeds freely, it is said to become a serious 

 pest. Where it does not produce seed it can be controlled by 

 plowing and growing a thickly sown and strong growing crop, 

 such as sorghum, millet, oats, cowpeas, or velvet beans. 



V. MINOR GRASSES 



105. JOHNSON GRASS (Sorghum halepense (L.) Pers.) is a strongly stolon- 

 iferous, coarse-growing plant, with culms four to seven feet high, bearing long, 

 broad, flat leaves and having an open panicle 6 to 18 inches long. The 

 spikelets are in pairs at the nodes or in threes at the end of the branches, 

 on**- -*sile and perfect, the others pedicelled and empty. The sessile spikelets 



.,_ >ne-seeded. From 25 to 40 pounds of seed may be sown to the acre, 

 it is hardy as far north at least as the fortieth parallel, as a weed it 

 usuallly met only in the cotton states, and especially on the black prairie 



