26 TEXAS STATE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



lands, however, it has become a serious nuisance and is even more to 

 be dreaded than Johnson grass. It does not form a deeply growing 

 root stock like Johnson grass but spreads by long creeping stems that 

 root at intervals and it produces no seed except in the southern parts 

 of Florida, New Mexico and California. Consequently it is not diffi- 

 cult to confine the plant to limited areas. It can be killed out com- 

 pletely by a single deep plowing during hot and dry summer weather 

 or just before a freeze in winter. Professor Dodson of the .Louisiana 

 Experiment Station says that it can also be killed in one season by 

 plowing the land deeply in December and in the following spring sow- 

 ing to Velvet beans or cowpeas. 



"The grass is generally started by planting pieces of the sod. Good 

 seed are very scarce and expensive, practically all of the Bermuda grass 

 seed sold in this country being imported from Australia. The seed may 

 be sown at the rate of three or four pounds per acre on prepared land 

 at any time when the ground is moist. 



"Bermuda is first of all a pasture grass but on rich, alluvial bottoms 

 may grow tall enough to cut for hay. For best results as pasture it 

 should be grazed closely and systematically, since live stock do not read- 

 ily eat the coarse and old stems. Good Bermuda pasture will easily 

 support two head of cattle to the acre throughout the season. The 

 writer has for ten years kept a driving horse on a pasture of less than 

 two acres, at an expense for grain of less than two dollars per month. 

 In the early spring he pastures his neighbor's cow gratis, in order to 

 keep the grass down. The farm stables charge $9 per month for board 

 for a horse. At this rate the value of the grass is something like $3.50 

 an acre per month. This pasture, however, is a very fine mixture of 

 Bermuda and Bur clover, and has been cultivated twice during the ten 

 years. The land without the grass is not worth more than $10 an acre. 

 Thirty head of cattle of different ages were kept on seventeen acres of 

 Bermuda pasture at the Louisiana Experiment Station, with no other 

 feed,, from March 25th to November 1st, and in addition sixteen steers 

 were run on for a few weeks when the growth was most vigorous. It 

 is stated by Professor Killebrew of Tennessee that an acre of good Ber- 

 muda grass will keep ten sheep in good condition for eight months of 

 the year. 



"The great possibilities of Bermuda grass in combination with some 

 legume such as Bur clover or hairy vetch as a permanent and profitable ' 

 solution of the one-crop system of farming that is so detrimental to the 

 South do not seem to have been properly appreciated in this region. 

 There can be but little doubt that live stock may be grown in any of 

 the Southern States as profitably on Bermuda grass as on Kentucky 

 blue grass in other sections." 



"Rescue grass (Bromus unioloides) is an annual plant, growing wild 

 in Central and South Texas, where it is an important addition to the 

 winter pasture, if supplied with sufficient moisture. It appears late in 

 the fall and matures its seed in May and June, thereby escaping the 

 dry weather of summer. Stock of all kinds will eat it readily and when 

 the rainfall is sufficient two or more cuttings of hay may be made in 

 one season on soils sufficiently fertile. Rescue grass makes a close and 

 rather handsome growth, from two to three feet in height. It 



