140 PASTORAL AND AGRICULTURAL BOTANY 



stock. Attempts to grow the grass experimentally at one of the agricult- 

 ural experiment stations met with failure, because most of the seeds were 

 found to lack vitality. Little is known about the feeding value of blue- 

 joint grass. It is, however, of special value for places with very wet soil. 



Fescue Grasses (Festuca elatior andF. ovina). The taller, or meadow 

 fescus is Festuca elatior ( ~ Festuca pratensis) and the sheep's fescue is F. 

 ovina. The first mentioned grass is the most important of the two species. 

 It is a perennial grass with long fibrous roots with its erect culms reaching a 

 height of 15 inches to two feet. The basal leaves have a shining surface 

 and an intense, green color, while the stem leaves are flat, not involute, 

 as in the sheep's fescue. The panicle is rather close with its branches 

 bearing spikelets nearly to its base. The spikelets have lanceolate 

 glumes, oblong-lanceolate lemmas, rarely short awned and scabrous at 

 the apex. This grass is native to the meadows and waste places through- 

 out the United States and southern Canada, naturalized from Europe 

 and flowering from June to August. 



Sheep's fescue, which has been introduced from Europe and has 

 become naturalized in a few localities, in the United States, is a fine-tex- 

 tured, small-growing species with a tufted habit, eaten by sheep quite 

 freely, but avoided by cattle, if other grasses are more available. 



Meadow fescue was early used as a constituent of the pasture mix- 

 tures sold by seedmen and in this way it has been widely distributed 

 through the United States. Sown alone it furnishes scant pasturage 

 during the hot summer months and the absence of rootstocks prevents its 

 successful competition with Kentucky blue-grass. It is, however, ap- 

 preciated in a few localities, such as the eastern parts of Kansas and 

 Nebraska, where it has proved one of the best pasture grasses. It does 

 well in wet places and survives the trampling by stock. It grows suc- 

 cessfully on clay soils, although the soil best adpoted to the growth of the 

 grass is on heavy black loam. The grass is seeded 10-15 pounds to the 

 acre from August 15 to September 15, without the use of a nurse crop. 

 It should be utilized more largely in the pasture mixtures of the east- 

 central states. 



Sweet Vernal Grass (Anthoxanthum odoratum). This is a common, 

 perennial grass of the meadows, pastures and waste lands in eastern 

 United States. Agriculturally speaking it is a grass of secondary im- 

 portance, growing from a foot to eighteen inches tall with close spike-like 

 panicles and 3-flowered spikelets with the terminal flower perfect and the 



