116 GRASSES AND HOW TO GROW THEM. 



and. in preventing land slides, and nothing can surpass 

 it for sodding the levees of alluvial lands. It is also 

 used as a lawn grass in the south where blue grass will 

 not so well serve the purpose. The chief objection to it 

 is the brown shade which characterizes it during the sea- 

 son of frost. 



One of the chief objections to Bermuda gTass is the 

 difficulty found in eradicating it on good soils. Many 

 growers of this grass, however, affirm that they do not 

 desire to completely eradicate it where it is grown in 

 rotation with other crops, since the residue of the grass 

 plants remaining in the soil after other crops have been 

 grown in the rotation, makes the re-establishment of 

 this grass much easier than it would otherwise be. 



Distribution. — It is thought that Bermuda grass is a 

 native of tropical Asia. It is now grown in many trop- 

 ical countries. It has been grown to a considerable ex- 

 'tent in various areas of southern Asia widely distant 

 from one another. Howsoever introduced, it has been 

 grown in the southern states for fully three quarters of 

 a century. Its growth there is said to have been first 

 noted by General Bethune, who gave considerable at- 

 tention to its distribution in the south. 



In the United States it is grown chiefly south of the 

 37th parallel, that is, south of a line running along or 

 near the northern limit of the states of jSTorth Carolina, 

 Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mexico and Arizona, 

 including the southern portion of California. It would 

 seem to be grown in every state south of this line and 

 eastward from Texas. In these states it is probably 

 destined to become the best pasture grass grown, and in 



