102 ESCmFFidN ^OF FEEDING STUFFS 



* < 



southern h&td&rti* the tiinbtky region, in Virginia, North Carolina, 

 Tennessee, and Kentucky (p. 90), although it is recommended for 

 many northern States and for a variety of soils. It succeeds well 

 in shady places and orchards, but grows in bunches and forms a 

 very rough sod. It is generally grown in mixtures with Kentucky 

 blue grass and white clover. Orchard grass is one of the earliest 

 grasses to start in the spring and is ready to cut before timothy. 

 If cut when in bloom or earlier, it makes a hay of very good quality. 

 If cut after bloom, the hay is coarse and unpalatable to stock. 



Like red top, orchard grass hay is high in digestible nutrients, 

 being higher both in digestible protein and carbohydrates than 

 timothy. 11 



Smooth brome grass (Bromus enermis) is a most important 

 perennial pasture and hay plant in the eastern part of the northern 

 plains region. It occupies a similar place in this region as timothy 

 and 'Kentucky blue grass do in northeastern United States. This 

 grass makes a good hay crop for a number of years, and is relished 

 by cattle, sheep, and horses. It is especially valuable as a pasture 

 grass for Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, but it is not adapted to 

 the warm climate of the southern States, or, apparently, to condi- 

 tions in the northeastern part of the country. 



Bermuda grass is the foundation of all the best permanent 

 pastures in the South, and in many localities is important for hay. 

 As the seed is expensive and somewhat uncertain in germination, 

 this grass is usually propagated by planting small pieces of sod. 

 The yield of hay on rich bottom land may be as much as four tons 

 per acre, less on poor soil, and on dry clay hills not worth harvest- 

 ing. Its feeding value is about equal to that of timothy. 12 



Johnson grass gives a heavy yield of excellent hay in the South 

 and furnishes good grazing for one or two seasons, but is such a 

 pest when grown in fields where it is not wanted that its planting 

 in clean fields cannot be recommended. It spreads both from seeds 

 and by its vigorous creeping root-stocks. 13 Johnson grass is also 

 undesirable from the feeder's standpoint, in so far as it may contain 

 prussic acid (hydrocyanic acid), if the growth has become rank, and 

 fatal results have followed when cattle have eaten of it. It is, 

 therefore, a plant that cannot be recommended, in spite of the 

 fact that it yields heavily and furnishes a good quality of soiling 

 crop and hay, under favorable conditions. 14 



11 U. S. Bureau of Plant Industry, Bulletin 100, vi. 



12 Farmers' Bulletin 509. 

 "Farmers' Bulletins 279 and 509. 



14 Bureau of Plant Industry, Bulletin 72, iii ; Bulletin 90, iv. 



