98 FARM GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 



One of the best authorities on the subjedl in the Cen- 

 tral West says it takes three ^-ears under the best con- 

 ditions to get a good stand of blue-grass, and that it 

 takes ten, fifteen, or twent}' j-ears to get a first-class 

 blue-grass pasture. "The very best blue-grass pas- 

 tures we have ever seen are on lands that have never 

 been profaned by the plow." The same authority 

 recommends that every two or three years a blue- grass 

 pasture should be disked throughly and sown to a mix- 

 ture of mammoth, red, and alsike clover. Pastures 

 thus treated furnish feed during midsummer when blue- 

 grass is ordinaril}' dormant. 



The difiSculty of starting blue-grass is increased by 

 the fadl that much of the seed on the market is of low 

 germinating quality. It has been shown bj' the inves- 

 tigations of the United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture that the cause of this is faulty' methods of han- 

 dling the seed during the harvest, ^^^lere large areas 

 are to be harvested much of the seed is gathered too 

 green. In curing it is customary to pile the freshly 

 stripped seed in long, narrow ricks a foot and a half 

 to three or four feet high. When heaped together 

 thus the mass heats rapidly, and frequently the ger- 

 minating power is thus completely destroyed. Tem- 

 peratures of 148° F have been observed in such ricks 

 twenty hours after the seed was thus heaped, and 

 only 3 per cent, of the seed retained its germinat- 

 ing power at that time. So general was this faulty 

 method of curing blue-grass seed a few years ago, that 

 seed laboratories considered a germination of 25 per 

 cent, excellent. Even now 45 to 50 per cent, is the 

 figfure usually given as the standard for germinating ' 



