98 FARM GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 
One of the best authorities on the subject in the Cen- 
tral West says it takes three years under the best con- 
ditions to' get a good stand of blue-grass, and that it 
takes ten, fifteen, or twenty years 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 ordinarily dormant. 
The difficulty of starting blue-grass is increased by 
the fact that much of the seed on the market is of low 
germinating quality. It has been shown by 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. Where 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 
figure usually given as the standard for germinating 
