Florida Agricultural Experiment Station 189 



again stool like the parent plant. These rattoons will some- 

 times grow as much as six feet long in a single reason. This 

 habit of producing rattoons enables the grass to cover the 

 ground quite completely although the catch from seeding may 

 be irregular. The Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales 

 for July 2, 1909, published the picture of a plant grown from 

 a single seed. At eight months it spread over an area of four 

 feet, three inches in diameter. 



Rhodes grass can be easily killed by ordinary farm methods. 

 It has no underground rattoons and dies readily when plowed 

 up, so no one need fear that it will ever become a farm pest. 

 It does not spread rapidly from seed under natural conditions- 



COMPOSITION OF RHODES GRASS HAY 

 TABLE 11 



* Hawaii Report, 1908, pp. 58-59. 



* Florida Report, 1909, p. xix. 



The protein, fat and nitrogen-free extract are the substances 

 that are of special value in a feed. The table shows that these 

 substances are present in Rhodes grass in approximately the 

 same ratio as in crabgrass and timothy. The selling price of 

 Rhodes-grass hay should be the same as that of timothy. As a 

 matter of fact we do not get the best quality of timothy in our 

 markets, and it is therefore likely that the timothy hay offered 

 to us is really not as valuable as is good Rhodes-grass hay. 



USES FOR RHODES GRASS 



Rhodes grass has been introduced into Florida so" recently 

 that there has been no opportunity to test it out in feeding ex- 

 periments nor for grazing purposes. It has been tested much 

 more extensively and thoroly in Australia where it is highly 

 recommended both as a grazing grass and as a hay grass. 

 Their stock prefer it to the American paspalum (Paspalum 

 dilatatum). It is especially useful in the moister regions where 



