24 GRAMINEAE (GRASS FAMILY) 



with fine appressed hair; the two lateral spikelets have pedicels 

 and are staminate or empty. So rapid a grower is the grass that 

 two, three, even four, heavy crops of hay 

 may be harvested yearly, if cut before it 

 blooms ; the hay is much relished by all 

 kinds of stock and is very fattening ; even 

 the rootstocks are tender and sweet, and 

 hogs eat them eagerly ; were it not so ag- 

 gressive it would be a most valued plant. 

 (Fig. 4.) 



Means of control 



With a view toward finding some 

 means of eradication, J. S. Gates, of the 

 Bureau of Plant Industry at Washington, 

 was employed by the Government to make 

 a special study of the plant, and the results 

 of his experiments and conclusions are 

 embodied in Farmers' Bulletin 279 of the 

 U. S. Department of Agriculture. He 

 states that the rootstocks are of three 

 kinds, which he classifies as primary, 

 secondary, and tertiary. 



"Primary rootstocks embrace all the 

 rootstoeks alive in the ground at the begin- 

 ning of the growing season in the spring. 



"Secondary rootstoeks are those which 

 arise from the primaries, come to the sur- 

 FIG. 4. Johnson-grass face and there form crowns, thus producing 

 (Sorghum halepense). X i new plants. 



"A tertiary rootstock is one starting later 



hi the season, about flowering time, from the base of the crown of this 

 new plant. 



"These tertiary rootstocks, when the ground is soft, and especially 

 when a large top is allowed to develop, grow to a large diameter and 

 penetrate to a great depth, sometimes as much as four feet and normally 

 from fifteen to thirty inches ; at other times, when the soil is compact, 

 and especially when the plant above ground is not allowed to develop 

 by reason of mowing or grazing, or both, the tertiary rootstocks grow 

 to but small diameter and run along just under the surface, cropping 

 out at intervals to form new plants. Our observations indicate that 



