268 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



land or tlic ainoimt of food given it, but should not be 

 allowed to reach a greater height than the former, as then 

 it is about going to head, and the leaves are tender and 

 numerous. If left too long, both stem and leaf become 

 fibrous and tough, and in this state the grass is not only 

 difficult to cure, but stock decline to eat it, and thereby 

 show their wisdom. 



The growth of this valuable grass is remarkably rapid, 

 and in moist, w^arm weather, or on damp ground, it often 

 makes a leap of fully an inch in one day. The seed, how- 

 ever, is rather slow in maturing, requiring more than two 

 months, sometimes nearly three, from the time the grass 

 starts to grow. It is a heavy black seed, and unless allowed 

 to ripen fully it is useless to plant it, as it wall not germin- 

 ate ; hence the necessity of procuring the seed of Johnson 

 grass from a reliable source. 



It is not as good a pasture grass as the Bermuda. It 

 Avill not bear constant cropping or the trampling of stock. 

 Carelessness in this respect will cause it, in the course of 

 three or four years, to disappear entirely ; but, even then, 

 plow the ground, wait a month or two, and lo ! there is the 

 grass again as thrifty and thick as ever ! 



The roots of the Johnson grass do not spread much, and 

 hence, unlike its rival, the Bermuda, it is easily kept with- 

 in its allotted limits, providing, of course, it is cut at the 

 proper time, which is a month before the seeds mature. 



Frequent cuttings during the summer and several plow^- 

 ings during the w^inter will effectually destroy a meadow 

 of Johnson grass. This plowing, too, is not as hard a 

 thing to do as might be supposed, because of a peculiar 

 habit the roots have of swelling out twice as large during 

 the growing season as they are during the winter. This 

 expansion has the effect of loosening the soil, so that the 

 roots offer very little resistance to the plow. 



