REDTOP AND ORCHARD-GRASS I SI 



lish farmer is well established in the belief that a grass 

 mixture should consist of tall and short and early 

 and late grasses, thereby giving a greater yield and 

 greater palatability to the produdt. This idea has 

 probably influenced New England farmers to some ex- 

 tent, who grow redtop as a good ' ' bottom ' ' grass — 

 i.e., one which fills the lower part of the swath with 

 leaves. 



To illustrate how firmly the idea of mixtures is 

 grounded in the minds of English agriculturists the 

 following instance may be cited. In a recent report 

 from the agricultural department of one of the leading 

 English colleges the results of experiments with seven 

 mixtures, each consisting of from nine to fifteen kinds 

 of seed, are reported. One of the mixtures far surpassed 

 the others, both in yield and in the quality of the hay, 

 and is therefore recommended in the following words : 

 " From the foregoing it is evident that the seeds sown 

 on plat 5 have been by far the most suitable for this 

 soil lying on the Valley Gravel. " It so happens that 

 this plat was the only one on which alfalfa was sown 

 inconsiderable quantity (lo lbs. per acre), and it is 

 stated that the produdl was chiefly alfalfa. It is safe 

 to say that a farmer from our own Western States 

 would have stated the conclusion differently. He 

 would have said : ' ' Alfalfa is undoubtedly the best hay 

 crop in this test. ' ' But it was the mixture of nine 

 grasses that was recommended by the experimenter. 



The popularity of redtop in North Carolina, Ten- 

 nessee, and the States to the south (where it is fre- 

 quently called "herd's-grass") is easily understood. 

 We are here on the border of the timothy region, or 



