XI 



BROME-GRASS {Bromus inermis) 



I "ry Irome-grass (Fig- 34) is one of the few recently 

 i j*^ J introduced grasses that have ■won a perma- 

 Rgjj^a nent place in American agriculture. Its in- 

 trodudlion is to be credited to the work of the 

 State experiment stations and the National Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. It has been grown b}" them ex- 

 perimentally for a good many j-ears, but began to 

 attradt general attention in the earl)- nineties. It was 

 at first heralded by enthusiastic seedsmen as a panacea 

 for all the ills of the farmer. Without question it is 

 the best pasture-grass 3-et found for the Prairie States 

 of the Northwest and Pacific Northwest. On the great 

 wheat-producing soHs of the sedtions mentioned it is 

 a pasture-grass unequaled in produdtiveness by any 

 other pasture-grass in the country (unless we except 

 the Bermuda grass of the South), and surpassed only 

 by blue-grass in the quaUty of its herbage. It is now 

 firml)' intrenched in the favor of farmers from Kansas 

 to the Canadian line and west to the Cascade Moun- 

 tains of Oregon and Washington. It is also a valuable 

 grass for moderately dr>' uplands in parts of California. 

 It is distindlly a Northern grass, ha^-ing never suc- 

 ceeded south of the latitude of St. Louis, except at 

 high elevations in the Mountain States. It is perfectly 

 hardj', even in Manitoba. In the dn,- summers of the 

 Northern Pacific Coast region (east of the Cascade 

 164 



