AND OTHER FORAGE PLANTS. 47 



shaken from the roots ; these will be in little piles and may be 

 easily forked into larger ones and burned or hauled away, to set 

 other lands or otherwise disposed of. This also is bad practice 

 unless the operation is performed late, say in August or Septem- 

 ber and the ground immediately sown with small grain, as 

 wheat, oats or barley ; or done early, say June, and the ground 

 sown with peas broadcast before harrowing, as thus the peas 

 would be covered by the same process which clears the land of 

 the grass roots. Then in October the peas should be followed 

 by small grain barley preferably if to be harvested, as the 

 other grains would probably grow too tall. In the spring the 

 barley would be harvested in time to be followed by cotton, 

 corn or potatoes, either of which would afford an abundant har- 

 vest. 



3. A third plan is to turn the sod with two inches of earth up 

 edgewise in the winter. A few freezes will kill most of the 

 roots and at dry times these may be collected by the rotary har- 

 row. Or without the harrowing the ground may be bedded in 

 the spring for cotton. The grass will give little trouble and two 

 years' neat culture in cotton will clear the land of Bermuda 

 grass. From this it may be seen how my friends who keep this 

 grass on their cultivated lands manage it (not allowing too clean 

 culture) and make better crops than those who keep it off their 

 lands. 



4. Unless plenty of stock is kept on this grass from April till 

 autumnal frosts, as intimated on another page, where Lespedeza 

 striata grows well, it will exterminate the Bermuda grass. 



ELEUSINE. 



E. INDICA, Yard Grass. 



This is called also crop grass, crab grass, wire grass, dog's-tooth 

 grass and crow-foot grass. All these names applied in different 

 localities to the same plant and in other localities to twenty other 

 plants show the impossibility of identifying plants by their pop- 

 ular names. The flexibility, toughness and strength of the 

 culms well entitle it to the name of wire grass. The clumps 

 have many long leaves and stems rising one or two feet high and 

 many long, strong, deeply penetrating fibrous roots. It grows 

 readily in door yards, barn yards and rich cultivated grounds, 

 and produces an immense quantity of seeds. It is a very nutri- 

 tious grass and good for grazing, soiling and hay. The succu- 

 lent lower part of the stems covered with the sheaths of the 

 leaves renders it difficult to cure well, for which several days 

 are required. It may be cut two or three times and yields a 

 large quantity of hay. 



