112 One Thousand Questions in Agriculture 



eradication therefrom. Still, Bermuda grass will make good pas- 

 turage on land which is too alkaline to make other crops, and there- 

 fore is highly esteemed by some owners of waste lands in the San 

 Joaquin valley. It is good pasturage and is most easily propagated 

 by cutting the roots up into short pieces by use of the hay-cutter, 

 nearly all the pieces retaining an eye which will make a new plant. 

 It is easy to get in and hard to get out. 



Salt Grass and Alfalfa. 



/ have some land in Sutter county and it lias some of tliis salt grass 

 in spots. I am about to take a tzventy-acre piece and put in alfalfa, but 

 some old-timers tell me that the salt grass on it is bad stuff to handle. 



Your trouble will probably be not so much the salt grass, but the 

 alkali in the soil which the salt grass can tolerate and which other 

 plants cannot stand. You cannot then substitute alfalfa for salt 

 grass without getting the alkali out of the soil, and you cannot do 

 this without having sufjficient drainage so that the rainfall may wash 

 the alkali out from the soil and carrj^ it away in the drainage water. 

 You probably cannot get a satisfactory growth of alfalfa on the spots 

 where the salt grass has established itself, although the land round 

 about may be very satisfactory to alfalfa. 



Giant Spurry. 



I would like information about spurry. Hozu much frost zvill it 

 stand? What is time for sowing? Its value as crop to plow under? 



From a California point of view, spurry is a winter-growing weed 

 which has been approved by orchardists in Sonoma county because 

 it yields a considerable amount of vegetation for turning under with 

 the spring plowing of the orchard. For this purpose it should be 

 sown at the beginning of the rainy season. Its value as a crop to 

 turn under depends upon the amount of growth you can get. It 

 is not a legume and, therefore, does not have the value of the nitro- 

 gen-gathering plant. Still, it yields humus and, therefore, is valuable 

 for winter growing as ordinary weeds, grasses, grains, etc., are. 



Light Soil and Scant Moisture. 



Advise me as to ploiving under a crop of last year's weeds zuhere 

 I intend to plant beans, corn, etc. The soil is "sUckens," on the Yuba 

 river, and the zvccds grew up last year in a crop of volunteer barley, 

 which zuas Jioggcd off. I expect to plow five inches deep, and calculate 

 that the barley strazv and zveeds zvill contribute to the supply of humus, 

 which is always deficient in most of our soils. I expect to try to grow 

 beans zvithout irrigation, and wonder if the trash would hold the soil 

 too open so as to dry them out. 



Considering the character of the soil which you describe and 

 the shallow plowing you intend we should certainly burn off all the 

 trash upon the land. With deep plowing early in the season this 



