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t>n the southern prairies subsist principally on this food. It revels 

 -on sandy soils, and has been grown extensively on the sandy hills 

 -of Virginia and North and South Carolina. From the extreme 

 vitality of its long, rhizome roots, it is very difficult to eradicate 

 when once it gets a good foothold. Occasionally the traveler meets 

 with patches of Bermuda grass in the cotton fields of the South, 

 ^,nd it is carefully avoided by the planter, any disturbance giving a 

 new start to its vigorous roots. Some ditch around it, and others 

 enclose it and let shrubbery do the work of destruction. It is used 

 extensively on the southern rivers to hold the levees and the em- 

 bankments of the roads. . It is the only yard grass in that section. 

 It forms a sward so tough it is almost impossible for a plow to pass 

 through it. There is a saying in the South, " that it would take a 

 team of six bull elephants to draw a thumb-lancet through it." 



It will throw its runners over a rock six feet across, and soon 

 hide it from view j or, it will run down the sides of the deepest 

 gully and stop its washing. 



The parks of the South, set with it, present a very beautiful ap- 

 pearance if kept mown, and its pale green color acts as a great 

 relief to the landscape when burning with the summer suns of the 

 South. Hogs thrive upon its succulent roots, and horses and cattle 

 upon its foliage. It has seed, but is always propagated by drop- 

 ping cuttings in a furrow two or three feet apart, from th,e fact that 

 the seed rarely mature, so that practically it may be said to have 

 none. It, however, does not endure a shade, and the weeds must 

 be mown from it the first year. 



In some of the worn and gullied fields of Tennessee, on her 

 mountain sides and on the sandy hills. of many parts of the State, 

 the cultivation of this grass would be a grand improvement, making 

 the waste places to bloom, where now only sterility reigns. During 

 the winter it, unlike blue-grass, disappears from view, but with the 

 warming influences of the sun it springs up and affords a constant 

 grazing through the spring, summer and autumn months. The 

 farmers of the South, before the war, looked upon it as a curse 

 rather than a blessing, and used every endeavor to destroy it. But 

 a change of opinion has taken place in this respect, and it is en- 

 couraged in its growth. 



It would be a good grass to mix with' blue-grass, as, when it dis- 

 appears in the winter, the blue-grass and white clover will spring 



