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TIMOTHY (Phleum pratense.} 



This grass is known in New England as Herd's grass, from a 

 Mr. Herd, who found it growing wild in New Hampshire, and in- 

 troduced it into cultivation. Further south, however, this name is 

 only applied to Red Top, or Agrostis vulgaris. 



Mr. Timothy Hanson carried it from New York to Carolina, and 

 from him it is known as timothy grass. 



Its leaves are abundant near the ground, but those on the stalk 

 are comparatively few. Like most other meadow grasses, it attains 

 its greatest value as a food before the seeds are ripe. The latter 

 are very abundant and highly nutritious. From ten to thirty 

 bushels are made on good land. 



It ripens late, and consequently favore the 

 farmer very much, as he is able to gave his 

 wheat before cutting and curing his hay. It 

 was a common custom at one time to sow it 

 with clover, as it added to the value of the hay, 

 and from the strength of its tall stems it pre- 

 vented the clover from lodging, but the fact of 

 ripening so much later than clover, causing a 

 great loss from shrinkage, has done away with 

 this practice, especially as orchard grass is so 

 much superior in that respect. Timothy is not 

 suitable for pasturing, having scarcely any 

 aftermath. Besides, the roots are easily de- 

 stroyed if the stems are taken off below the 

 first joint, this much being required for their 

 vitality. For this reason, also, it is necessary 

 to be careful to set the blade of the mower suffici- 

 ently high to leave the first joint intact. The 

 roots of this grass are both fibrous and bulbous. 

 Its bulbs have but few rootlets starting out 

 from them, the plant depending for its support 

 principally on the store of nourishment laid up within the bulbs. 

 If, therefore, the stem is shaved off entirely, the bulbs, being de- 

 prived of all nourishment, throw out tubers all around, and these 

 send up shoots, seeking food in the air, but they are feeble, and, if 

 spared by the frosts of winter, are so crippled they fall an easy 

 prey to the scorching suns of summer. For the same reason pas- 



