MEADOWS AND PASTURES 23 
greater in the case of such grasses as tall meadow oat- 
grass, meadow-fescue, Italian rye-grass, and the like, 
which are so little used in this country. The stock is 
liable to be old, and such seeds should always be tested 
before risking good land to them. The same is true 
of blue-grass, Johnson, and Bermuda grasses, which 
are especially liable to be of poor quality. 
The rate at which the various grass-seeds are to be 
sown is given in discussing the individual grasses later 
in this volume. When mixtures are sown, a number 
of considerations govern the amount of each kind of 
seed to use. In sowing grasses and clovers together 
it is customary to sow enough of both grass-seed and 
clover-seed for a full stand. But if several grasses 
are used in the mixture, the amount of each is usually 
somewhat reduced. In parts of the Timothy Region it 
is customary to add more or less redtop to the timothy 
and clover (except when the hay is grown for sale), 
but the amount of timothy-seed is not thereby reduced. 
The amount of each kind of seed to be used depends 
partly on how much of each kind of grass is desired 
in the hay. Redtop is usually added as a ‘‘filler,’’ to 
increase the yield, rather than because of its desirabil- 
ity in the hay, and hence the proportion of its seed is 
usually small. In the mixture above recommended for 
uplands in the Middle South, the amount of orchard- 
grass is about half what would be sown if this were 
the only grass to be sown with the clovers. The 
amount of redtop is about one-fourth, and that of tall 
meadow oat-grass about one-third of a full seeding. 
Some authorities recommend that nearly as much 
of each kind of seed be used in a mixture as if it were 
