CRAB GRASS DOOR-YARD AND BARN- YARD GRASSES. 121 



South. The sorghums, millets, dourras, the panicums and others, all 

 more or less closely related to the Millet family, luxuriate in the warm 

 soil and bright sunshine of the Southern States. And attention is 

 now being given to their culture in many localities. After Bermuda 

 Grass, the common native grasses which spring up spontaneously 

 when the fields are abandoned to them are found to have a special 

 value for hay as well as pasture. One of the most valuable of these 

 is that variety once thought to be the greatest pest of the cotton 

 planter, known as 



CRAB GRASS. 



This is a species of Panicum well known in the Northern States by 

 its purplish colored, spreading, finger-like panicle, and which appears 

 late in the summer as a common weed in lawns and fields. But it 

 attains a wonderful development in the South, even upon lands 

 exhausted by continuous cotton growing. A case which happened 

 a few years ago recently came to my knowledge. A Northern farmer 

 went to Georgia in search for a cheap tract of land upon which to 

 establish a farm. He found one covered with a luxurious growth of 

 this grass, which had been abandoned in despair by the owner, a 

 cotton planter, and was offered to him at an exceedingly low price. 

 He had seen baled hay from the North in car loads at nearly every 

 station on his journey, and conceived the idea .that this grass would 

 make excellent hay and sell at a very profitable price. He purchased 

 the farm, sent to a friend in New York to buy for him a couple of 

 mowing machines and a hay press, and baled the crop, which that 

 year amounted to over 300 tons, and far more than repaid his whole 

 investment. This instance certainly carries a moral and a useful 

 hint to Southern farmers, and those in the North who desire to find a 

 field for enterprise in the sunny South. 



DOOR-YARD AND BARN-YARD GRASSES. 



Two other valuable native grasses are the common species of 

 Panicum known as Door-yard, or Crow's Foot Grass, and Barn-yard, or 

 Cock's Foot.* These are exceedingly common, and have a very vigorous 

 growth. They will be easily recognized from the illustrations as also 

 common in the North, appearing in flower late in the summer. 

 They are both becoming valuable pasture grasses all over the South, 



* This grass should not be confounded with Orchard Grass, previously referred to 

 in this chaptor, anil also called Cock's Foot by English farmers. 



