PASTURES, MEADOWS, AND FORAGE 193 



in head, and followed by a crop of Hungarian 

 grass, which thrives in hot weather; and this in 

 turn may be followed by oats and peas. There 

 will not be time in the North for the oats and 

 peas to mature, but they will remain green 

 through November, and may furnish late fall 

 pasture, or may be left on the ground to serve as 

 a winter cover-crop (115). 



SUGGESTIONS OJV CHAPTER XII 



304a. It is impracticable to treat of specific crops in a 

 text-book. Grass and forage are so fundamental to the con- 

 ception of agriculture, however, that it will be profitable to 

 discuss them, particularly as the cultivation of them illustrates 

 some of the underlying principles of cropping. For advice as 

 to the handling of particular crops, the enquirer must go to 

 books on the special topics. 



304ft. The true grasses constitute the natural family of 

 plants known to botanists as the Grarninere or grass family ; 

 and this family includes all the cereal grains, as wheat, maize, 

 and rice. In its largest sense, therefore, the word grass in- 

 cludes many plants which are not commonly recognized as 

 grasses. 



304c. The term grass is popularly used to designate the 

 medium sized and smaller members of the grass family, such 

 as ore hard -grass, timothy, and blue-grass, and not the larger 

 grasses, as oats, sugar-cane, and bamboo. 



304d. The clovers are sometimes erroneously called grasses ; 

 and "a field of grass" may contain many kinds of plants. There 

 are many kinds of clover. The common red clover is Trifolium 

 pratense ; the medium red is T. medium; the alsike is T. hybri- 

 dum, with rose-tinted flowers ; the white or creeping clover, 

 or shamrock, is T. repens ; the crimson, used for cover-crops, is 



M 



