66 FODDER AND PASTURE PLANTS. 



Pasture: As a pasture grass it is highly esteemed. It start- 

 early in spring, provides superior feed, is eagerly grazed by all kinds 

 of stock and is of high fattening value. If sown alone for hay or 

 pasture, twenty to thirty pounds of seed should be applied per acre. 



Seed : Commercial seed of Kentucky Blue Grass nearly all comes 

 from a few counties of Kentucky, in the heart of the Blue Grass 

 region. It is harvested by hand or by machine strippers which 

 rake off the seed and at the same time collect it. The crop is ready 

 for stripping when the panicles are yellow. The seed is then fairly 

 ripe and when stripped will reach full maturity during the curing 

 process. To cure it, the seed must be stirred frequently, during the 

 first days at least three times a day, to give the air admission to 

 every part and thus prevent heating. If not cured carefully, the 

 seed will take on a grey, dusty appearance and a musty smell and 

 its vitality will be considerably lessened or even completely destroyed. 



Quality of seed: Good commercial seed is yellowish-brown. 

 When taken from the spikelets the seeds have a bunch of long, 

 cobweb-like hairs attached to their base. Such hairs are wanting in 

 Canadian Blue Grass seed, and it is therefore easy to separate it 

 from the Kentucky seed when fresh from the spikelets. During 

 curing and cleaning, however, these hairs are generally rubbed off 

 and commercial seed of Kentucky and Canadian Blue Grass are 

 very much alike. As a rule, the seed of the former is sharp-pointed 

 and the nerves of the enclosing glumes distinct, while the seed of the 

 latter is blunt and the nerves of the glumes inconspicuous. 



The legal weight per bushel of seed is fourteen pounds. 



ROUGH-STALKED MEADOW GRASS (Poa trivialis L.) 



Botanical description: Rough-stalked Meadow Grass is very 

 like the Kentucky Blue. It is perennial with a short rootstock 

 from which stems and leafy shoots develop. The latter are either 

 upright or creeping. The upright shoots appear in great number 

 at the base of the stems, making the plant more conspicuously tufted 

 than is Kentucky Blue Grass. The creeping shoots arise in the same 

 way but take a horizontal direction. They thus correspond in a 

 way to the runners of Kentucky Blue Grass. The differences, how- 

 ever, are quite material. The Kentucky Blue Grass shoots are 

 underground and scaly while the Rough-stalked Meadow Grass 

 shoots always creep on the surface and carry normally developed 



