BLUEGRASS PASTURES OF SOUTH. 115 



tify as to the quality of the fruit and, therefore, the success of the 

 practice. Now, since the siloing of green stock food is nothing 

 more or less than a process of canning, it may be carried over 

 several years without any deterring influences. 



The renovation of the bluegrass pastures of Middle Tennessee 

 and other Southern bluegrass communities is another wide field 

 of usefulness to which the summer silo in the South may profitably 

 be put. That the native bluegrass areas of this section have been 

 abused is plainly evident, says a bulletin recently issued by the 

 N. C. & St. Louis Railway. "Much of the pasture lands of Middle 

 Tennessee which once lay in vast stretches of perfect bluegrass 

 sod has been brought by continuous grazing to a comparatively 

 low state of yielding capacity. Like all othr plants, and animals, 

 bluegrass has the disposition to lose vitality in the process of re- 

 production, and if grazed, even lightly, during the period of propa- 

 gation, serious injury is the result. Instead of reproducing itself 

 through the agency of its own seed, as is popularly supposed, blue- 

 grass propagates its kind chiefly at the root. With the appear- 

 ance of the first warm sun rays of early spring, long lateral joint- 

 ed rootlets are sent out from the parent root, from which spring 

 little shoots which appear on the surface of the soil as new grass. 

 If grazed during this process, the act of reproduction is arrested 

 and the old plant itself permanently injured. In order to renew 

 and maintain a perfect sod on the bluegrass lands of the South, 

 the process of reproduction must be allowed to operate undis- 

 turbed by removing all stock from the pastures for six weeks or 

 two months early in the spring. This period of rest should extend 

 from February 1 to 15 to April 1. One ton of silage per head of 

 either dairy or beef stock reserved from the winter supply, or a 

 small silo filled and retained for that purpose, would enable the 

 Southern bluegrass pasture owner to transform his meager pro- 

 ducing lands into a perfect sod with but little extra expense." 



The substance of a strong editorial in Wallace's Farmer, while 

 referring particularly to the lesson of the 1910 drouth, applies 

 with equal force wherever pasture is used or cattle are fed. It is 

 worth quoting here: 



"The question we are constantly asked is: 'Will silage keep 

 through the summer?' We are glad to be able to give a direct 

 answer to this, not theoretically, but from personal experience. 

 We built a silo on one of the Wallace farms and filled it in 1908, 



