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until the top is as mellow as garden mold. If a sandy soil is selected it 

 will not benefit it or render it more pulverulent by plowing it in the fall. 

 When the soil becomes dry enough to plow the land should be prepared 

 and the seed should be sown before a rain compacts the land. 



Orchard grass always does best in Tennessee when sown early in the 

 spring. From the 15th of March to the 15th of April is the best time. 

 Not less than two. to three bushels of seed should be sown to the acre. 

 As the seeds are large a light harrow must be dragged over the land after 

 sowing so as to cover them well. The greatest objection to this grass 

 is its tendency to grow in stools or tussocks leaving large bare inter- 

 spaces. To correct this habit a fine toothed harrow should be run over 

 the pasture every spring and wherever there is a vacant place more seed 

 should be sown and carefully covered. A roller run over the pasture 

 when the land is wet represses this tendency to form tussocks. Mr. Ed- 

 mund Murphy recommends the sowing of ten pounds of red clover per 

 acre as a preventive of this proclivity. 



Orchard grass is a very vigorous grower, surpassed in this respect 

 by but few in the whole catalogue of domestic grasses. It is succulent 

 and nutritious and when mowed it requires only a few days of moist 

 weather to bring out its verdant blades in as great beauty and vigor as 

 ever. It will bear more grazing than almost any other grass because of 

 this rapid growth. Tramping does not seem to affect it in any other way 

 than by inducing a tussocky growth. Two or three crops of it may be 

 cut in one season when grown on a deep, rich and moist soil but after 

 each cutting it should be top-dressed with superphosphate of lime or with 

 stable manure. 



Mr. W. D. Gallagher gives the following directions for sowing or- 

 chard grass: ''Plow the land deep, pulverize the soil well, be generous as 

 to the quantity of seed, let the seed be good, sow it evenly, give the land 

 as good treatment afterwards as is given to meadow lands in timothy." 



VIRTUES OF ORCHARD GRASS Orchard grass is a long liver 

 and will be victorious in a contest for supremacy in the pasture over 

 other grasses provided always that its tendency to grow in tufts be coun- 

 teracted. Mr. L. F. Allen, of New York, a farmer and stock grower 

 of national reputation, testifies to the fact that he has had it growing in- 

 one field for a period of forty years with continuous mowing and pas- 

 turing. He says that if cut at the right stage it is just as good for any 

 kind of animal as timothy hay. 



Mr. T. A. Cole, of the same state, says that after twenty years of 

 experience he has settled down upon orchard grass as possessing greater 

 merits than any other for both pasture and meadow, for fattening animals 

 or for dairy stock. Of its value for dairy purposes he says: "When cut 

 for hay just before it blooms and cured with as little sun as possible it 

 will make more milk than any other variety known to me; if left to ripen, 

 it is worthless." 



When grown for hay therefore it may be cut and cured before clover,, 

 timothy or herd's grass is ready for the mower and in this there is a 

 great advantage. The yield of hay on fertile land is two tons to the acre. 



As to its capacity for furnishing grazing Col. Bowman, writing from 



