TWO PROMINENT SOUTHERN GRASSES 133 
as cow-peas or velvet beans, Bermuda grass can be ex- 
terminated in a single season.’’ A very good system 
to pursue for this purpose on a stock-farm is to sow 
oats in the fall, harvest them for hay in the spring, 
and then seed thickly to cow-peas or velvet beans. 
South of Tennessee and Arkansas there is plenty of 
time for two crops of cow-peasin summer. This system 
continued for two seasons on land that is properly 
manured usually eradicates the grass completely, and 
gives two or three good crops of hay a year. One 
season of such treatment is frequently sufficient. 
Sorghum and millet are also good summer crops to 
use in getting rid of Bermuda grass. For this purpose 
sorghum should be sown thick—say, two bushels of 
seed tothe acre. Bermuda grass, being of low growth, 
is completely shaded out by these taller, dense-growing 
crops. On good land in the South, oats yield two to 
two and a half tons, and sorghum six to ten tons, of 
excellent hay per acre. Killing Bermuda grass ought, 
therefore, to be a profitable pastime on Southern farms 
where hay is needed. 
From what has been said it is clear that Bermuda 
grass is not seriously to be dreaded on a farm devoted 
to a rational system of croprotation. Some of the best 
farmers the writer has ever known in the South make 
constant use of Bermuda grass for pasture on the 
rougher portions of the farm, and are never bothered 
with it in the slightest degree on the cultivated fields. 
Since it produces no seed, except in the extreme South, 
there is no danger that stock will scatter it in their 
-droppings. Where it does not produce seed there is 
little difficulty in controlling it, and there is no ques- 
