28 



the moist soils of the elevated valleys and coves found among the Unaka 

 mountains. 



On fertile soils it will yield about 40 bushels of seed to the acre and 

 the seed weighs 25 to 30 pounds per bushel. It cannot be called an eco- 

 nomical grass for pastures or meadows. Its shortness of life makes the 

 sowing of it for permanent pastures or meadows very bad husbandry. 

 The sowing of it is only a little more economical than the sowing of an 

 annual. And yet for a three years rotation it will be found very useful. 



Mr. Edmund Murphy, a close observer of the habits of this grass 

 says: "In laying down some hundred of acres with this grass alone or in 

 mixture with others my experience fully bears out the justice of the 

 charge of bad husbandry in sowing it for permanent meadows or pastures. 

 Nor is the want of durability its only bad property. It is perhaps the 

 most exhausting of all the grasses on land, nearly as much so indeed, 



Perennial Rye Grass Loliuni perenne. 

 2. Inflorescence a spike. 3. Upper leaf. 

 4. Spikelet, with a portion of the rhachis. 

 * o. Empty glumes of the terminal spikelet. 

 6. Floral glume. 7. Palea. 8. Caryopsis. 



when permitted to form its seed, as a crop of corn (wheat). In dry soil 

 or in almost any kind of soil, should dry weather set in after it has been 

 cut, an almost total failure of the aftergrass will be the result. Its great- 

 est value appears to be for sowing with clover, on land intended to remain 

 only two or three years in grass; with this view, and when sown at the 

 rate of one bushel per acre, with 20 pounds of red clover; or two bushels 

 of rye grass, and 14 pounds of red clover on deep rich ground, enormous 

 crops are produced. When the intention is to .leave the land only one 

 year in grass, the Italian rye grass is greatly to be preferred." 



According to the Woburn experiments it is very low in its nutritive 

 elements. It ranks low as to the quantity and quality of its produce and 



