46 FARM GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 



to throw up seed-stalks, after which, if the stock are 

 removed, a fair crop of grain may be harvested. 



Good temporary pastures may be made in the 

 North in summer by sowing winter cereals in the 

 spring. A true winter cereal, if sown in spring in the 

 North, will not head out that year, but will produce a 

 fine growth of leaves which stock eat with a relish. 

 They may also be pastured the following winter, and 

 then produce a crop of grain the next spring if the 

 stock is taken off early enough, except in the case of 

 wheat, which is destroyed by the Hessian fly when 

 sown in the spring and left over till next spring. For 

 this reason, when winter wheat is sown in spring and 

 used for summer pasture, it should be plowed up in the 

 fall. 



When the cereals are used for pasture, particularly 

 on clay soils, greater care should be taken not to allow 

 stock on the field in wet weather than when pasturing 

 grasses that form a dense sod. A clay soil may be 

 pradlically ruined by the trampling of stock in wet 

 weather, even where it has a good sod to protect it. 



PASTURE MIXTURES 



If questions concerning farm practice could be 

 solved with pencil and paper, the problem of the best 

 pasture mixtures would have been solved long ago. It 

 is easy to figure out mixtures that ought to give abun- 

 dant pasture from early spring till snow flies, and, in the 

 South, the year round. This has been done repeat- 

 edly for the American farmer, but he still sticks to his 

 blue-grass and white clover or his Bermuda grass, as 

 the case may be, thus depriving his stock of pasture 



