FIELD AND GARDEN 

 PRODUCTS 



PARTI *-* 



GRASS AND HAY 



TIMOTHY. 



GRASSES are so common, growing everywhere in meadows 

 and waste places, upon hillsides and plains, covering as with 

 a verdant carpet the bare places of the earth with their 

 myriad hosts of individual plants, that the beholder is apt 

 to forget their vast significance in the economy of nature and that 

 they constitute the greatest of our agricultural resources and form 

 the very foundation upon which rests much of our agricultural 

 wealth and prosperity. According to estimates of the Division of 

 Statistics the hay crop of 1910 alone amounted to 60,978,000 tons, 

 valued at $747,769,000, exceeding the total value of the wheat crop. 

 In addition to this vast quantity of hay, which would barely suffice 

 to carry through the year about 17,000,000 milch cows owned in the 

 United States, enough pasturage, fodder and green forage were 

 supplied to feed nearly 40,000,000 sheep, over 30,000,000 cattle, 

 15,000,000 horses and about 2,000,000 mules. A very conservative 

 estimate places the total annual value of the grass and forage crops 

 of this country at considerable more than a billion dollars ($1,000,- 

 000,000). (Dept. Agr. Y. B. 1910.) 



In the United States and Canada there are many climates, kinds 

 of soil, geological formations, degrees of aridity and moisture. It 

 must be apparent that one species of grass can not be equally well 

 adapted to growth in all of this extensive land ; yet hardly a dozen 

 species of grasses have been successfully introduced into American 

 agriculture. True it is that this number, together with a number of 

 local native varieties, answers with a tolerable degree of satisfaction 

 the wants of quite an extensive portion of the country, chiefly the 

 northern and cooler regions. But it is well known that in other 

 localities the same kinds of grasses do not succeed equally well and 

 one of the most important problems for those regions is to obtain 

 such kinds as shall be thoroughly adapted to their peculiarities of 

 climate and soil. The solution of this question is now in progress 

 and is largely a matter of experiment and observation. The grasses 

 now in cultivation were once wild grasses, and are still such in their 

 native homes. Among the great nations of the world the United 



17 



