REDTOP AND ORCHARD-GRASS 157 
blooming period is over. When cut during or just 
after bloom it makes hay of superior quality, but if 
left a week or ten days later it makes very poor hay. 
This is more or less true of all our farm grasses, but 
it seems to be more pronounced in the case of orchard- 
grass than most others. The author has fed orchard- 
grass hay extensively to horses and cattle with excel- 
lent results, but it must be cut as stated above or stock 
do not eat it readily. It is not always possible to cut 
hay at the proper time; other farm work may be 
pressing, or unfavorable weather may delay haying. 
It is therefore safer, when practicable, to grow a grass: 
like timothy, which does not have to be cut so promptly, 
though even timothy should be cut before the seed is 
ripe to secure hay of the best quality. Another reason 
why farmers do not like to grow much orchard-grass 
is that timothy is the standard hay in all city markets, 
and even better hay than timothy will usually sell at a 
lower price because horsemen know what timothy hay 
is and are not familiar with orchard-grass hay, How 
the two would stand in the favor of feeders if both 
were equally known has never been determined. Ex- 
perimenters have very generally recommended orchard- 
grass very highly. The fact that, in actual farm 
practice, orchard-grass hay would be cut at all stages 
from blooming to maturity of the seed, would un- 
doubtedly make the quality of the hay very irregular, 
and thus render it unpopular. 
The uneven character of orchard-grass sod, as seen 
in Fig. 32, also'tends to render it unpopular with 
farmers. It is no small task to ride a mower over an 
orchard-grass meadow. ‘The small tussocks which 
