CHAPTER III. 



FODDER AND FORAGE PLANTS. 

 (EXCLUSIVE OF GRASSES.) 



The bulk of the information given in the following pages is taken 

 from Bulletin No. 2, issued by the United States Department of 

 Agriculture, division of agrostology. Numerous other plants are 

 mentioned in the bulletin, but only those have been selected which 

 it is considered might be successfully introduced into this colony. 

 Some of the varieties are already here, and are deserving of further 

 propagation. The scientific names, as well as the common names of 

 the plants, are given, and also a short botanical description. 



Allionia incarnata (Gunaninpil). A slender prostrate plant 

 belonging to the Four o'Clock family, which comes up from 

 the seed after the summer rains in the grazing region of Arizona and 

 New Mexico, and furnishes a palatable and nutritious food for sheep 

 and cattle. It stands pasturing well, and usually ripens an 

 abundance of seed. 



Atnaranthus (Bigweed ; pigweed ; tumbleweed). On the 

 western ranges there are several species of AiiHirunlhus which 

 contribute to the forage. One of these, A. blitoidcs, comes 

 up on new breaking, and with other weedy species is readily eaten 

 by cattle before it has become woody. Because of their tumbling 

 habit, they are rapidly scattered by the winds. 



Anthyllis nilucniria (Kidney vetch ; common kidney vetch ; 

 wound wort ; wound clover ; sand clover ; yellow sand trefoil ; 

 lady's ringers. Fig. i.) A low perennial legume, which is found 

 wild over a large part of Europe. It grows naturally in very dry 

 and sterile soils along the roadsides wherever the soil is thin 

 and the subsoil calcareous. It is recommended as furnishing a 

 palatable though scant forage on dry, calcareous soils in places 

 that are too poor to support even white clover. The product 

 of the first year is small, so that it is only a profitable 

 crop when sown with grain. The second year the plants throw up 

 tall stems, often three or four feet hi&h. It is not recommended 

 to sow this crop in the United States, except experimentally upon 

 such barren SOUS as have been described, and then only after the 

 better species have been tried and found to be failures. 



Api<^ tnbrr'ixtt (Ground nut). A wild-climbing bean, with 

 milky juice, and straight or slightly curved many-seeded pods, 

 growing in lo\v grounds as far west as the Missouri river. It is 

 eaten by all kinds of stock. The edible tubers, which furnish food 

 for swine, are borne on underground shoots. 







