78 



as a grazing and hay crop. It will grow well on any soil containing sufficient clay 

 and not holding too much water. If the land be too tenacious, drainage will remedy 

 the soil ; if worn out, a top dressing of stable manure will give it a good send-off, 

 and it will furnish several mowings the first year. It grows well between 29° and 

 48° latitude. It may be mowed from two to four times a year, according to latitude, 

 season and treatment, yielding from 1 to 3 tons of excellent hay per acre on poor 

 to medium land. It is easily cured and handled. It is readily seeded and 

 catches with certainty. It grows well in open lands and in forests of large 

 trees, the underbrush being all cleared off. I know but one objection to it. 

 Like tall oat grass it is disposed to grow in clumps and leave much of 

 the ground uncovered. This may be obviated by thick seeding, using. 2£, or, 

 better, 3 bushels of seed per acre. The gaps may be prevented by sowing 

 with it a few pounds of red-top seed. But as the latter multiplies annually 

 from seeds dropping, it would in a few years root out the orchard grass. In com- 

 mon with others I perfer red clover with orchard grass. It fills the gaps and ma- 

 tures at the same time with the orchard grass ; the mixture makes good pasture and 

 good hay ; but if mowed more than twice a year, or grazed too soon after the second 

 mowing, the clover will rapidly fail. One peck of red clover seed and six pecks of 

 orchard grass seed is a good proportion per acre. * * * After being cut it has 

 been found to grow four inches in less than three days. Sheep leave all other grasses 

 if they can find this, and acre for acre it will sustain twice as many sheep or other 

 stock as timothy. Cut at the proper stage it makes a much better hay than timothy, 

 and is greatly preferred by animals, being easier to masticate, digest, and assimilate ; 

 in fact, more like green grass in flavor, tenderness, and solubility. 



Mr. J. S. Gould, of New York, says : 



The testimony that has been collected from all parts of the world for two centu- 

 ries past establishes the place of this species among the very best of our forage 

 grasses, and we have not the shadow of a doubt that the interests of our graziers 

 and dairymen would be greatly promoted by its more extended cultivation. It is 

 always found in the rich old pastures of England, where an acre of land can be re- 

 lied on to fatten a bullock and four sheep. It is admirably adapted for growing in 

 the shade, no grass being equal to it in this respect, except the rough-stalked 

 meadow grass (Poa trwialis.) It receives the name of orchard grass from this cir- 

 cumstance. We have seen it growing in great luxuriance in dense old New England 

 orchards, where no other grass except Poa trivialis would grow at all. It affords a 

 good bite earlier in the spring than any other grass except the meadow fox-tail 

 (Alopecurus pratensis.) It affords a very great amount of aftermath, being exceeded 

 in this respect by no other grass, except Kentucky blue grass, (Poa pratenm,) and 

 it continues to send out root leaves until very late in the autumn. When sown with 

 other grasses its tendency to form tussocks is very much diminished ; indeed, it is 

 always unprofitable to sow it alone in meadows or pastures, as it stands too thin 

 upon the ground to make a profitable use of the land, and the filling up of the in- 

 terspaces with other varieties greatly improves the quality of the orchard grass by 

 restraining its rankness and making it more delicate. 



Beiza, Li 



•inn. 



Spikelets many-flowered, paniculate, ovate or roundish, flattish- 

 tumid. Outer glumes unequal, persistent, three to five nerved, sea- 



