COMMON PASTURE GRASSES. 



23 



the top of the midrib ; the sides of the blade are parallel to 

 near their top, and then rapidly contract to a point, so that 

 the blade has usually a canoe-shaped tip. 



Poa pratensis is 

 quite permanent, and 

 produces a close com- 

 pact turf. The amount 

 of feed it gives is only 

 moderate, but its 

 palatability is high. 

 It is never sown on 

 land intended for crop- 

 ping, where indeed 

 it forms one of the 

 best known twitches. 

 Though the grass has 

 the very highest repu- 

 tation in America for 

 permanent pasture — 

 forming the famous 

 Kentucky Blue Grass, 

 yet it has here not a wide sphere of usefulness. On 

 light dry lands it does not thrive, and in places where 

 there is much moisture it can be replaced with 

 Creeping Bent ; between these two extremes, however, 

 is a large area of land where Poa pratensis might be employed 

 for pastures which are intended to lie down permanently, 

 but this is just the class of land where Cocksfoot thrives. 

 Despite American practice, then, Poa pratensis should be 

 used in only small quantities, say half a pound per acre, to 

 form a turf between Cocksfoot tufts. It is a question, how- 

 ever, whether Dogstail cannot do all that Poa pratensis 

 can, and at the same time give more feed, and less prospect 

 of subsequent trouble. 



Fig. 13. — Poa prstensiB, (alter Fream). 



