51 



II. W. L. Lewis, secretary Louisiana State Grange, Tangipahoa Par- 

 ish, La. (P. O., Osyka, Miss.) : 



It is hardy aud cultivated in small lots, doing best on rich, sandy loam, yielding 2 

 to 3 tons per acre. I have experimented more than any one else in my section \\Tth 

 forago plants, especially winter grains and grasses. Have used rye and barley for 

 winter feed, but have given them up in favor of the Holcm lanatu*; have had this in 

 cultivation for thirty years. It is a perennial, but owing to its shallow roots it dies 

 out during our long, dry summer and fall from 50 to 75 per cent. One lot kept the 

 third year had less than 10 per cent, of the grass alive. Hence I have for twenty 

 years or more used it as an annual, sowing it with turnips, collards, or by itself. A 

 good way is to sow the seed broadcast and cover lightly in a late crop of turnips after 

 the last cultivation. After the turnip crop is removed the first warm days in January 

 or February will start the grass into rapid growth. It is cut frequently through the 

 spring for green feed, and after oats are ready to cut is allowed to mature seedt 



Prof. D. L. Phares, in his " Farmer's Book of Grasses," says: 



In the Eastern States this grass is called Salem grass and white Timothy; in the 

 South, velvet lawn grass, and velvet mesquite grass; in England, woolly soft grass 

 and Yorkshire white. It has been sent to me for name more frequently than any 

 other grass. Having found its way to Texas, people going there from other States 

 have sent back seeds to their friends, calling it Texas velvet mesquite grass, supposing 

 it a native of that State. So far as has come to my knowledge nine-tenths of all so- 

 called mesquite. grass planted in the Southern States is this European velvet grass. 

 It grows much larger in some of the Southern States than in the Eastern States or in 

 England, and seems to have greatly improved by acclimation. 



Velvet grass may be readily propagated by sowing the seed or dividing the roots. 

 It luxuriates in moist, peaty lands, but will grow on poor, sandy, or clay hill lands 

 and produce remunerative crops where few others will make anything. The reason 

 that cattle do not prefer it is not because of a deficiency in nutrition, but because of 

 its combination. It is deficient simply in saline and bitter extractive matter which 

 cattle relish in grasses. 



It is by no means the best of our grasses, but best on some lands. Other grasses 

 are more profitable to me. It should be sown from August to October, 14 pounds equal 

 to 2 bushels per acre. Northward it is perennial, in the South it is not strictly so. 



(Plate 54.) 



TRISETUM. 



Spikelets two to three, rarely five-flowered, in a dense or open pan- 

 icle, the rachis usually hairy and produced into a bristle at the base of 

 the upper flower; outer glumes unequal, acute, keeled, membranaceous, 

 with scarious margins; flowering glumes of similar texture, keeled, 

 acute, the apex two-toothed, the teeth sometimes prolonged into bristle- 

 like points, the middle nerve furnished with an awn attached above the 

 middle, which is usually twisted at the base and bent in the diddle; 

 palet hyaline, narrow, two-nerved, two-toothed. 



Trisetum palustre. 



A slender grass, usually about 2 feet high, growing in low meadows or 

 moist ground throughout the eastern part of the United States. The 

 culms are smooth, with long internodes and few linear leaves, 2 to 4 

 inches long; the panicle is oblong, 3 to 4 inches long, loose and grace- 

 fully drooping, the branches two to five together, rather capillary, 1 to 



