RUSSIAN BROME GRASS. 177 



or in combinations for the grain or for pasture ; it may 

 in turn be followed by any crop which is greatly benefit- 

 ed by an abundance of humus in ^he soil. The roots of the 

 grass are less likely to possess the soil so completely in 

 the South, because of the less fertility which in many 

 places, southern soils possess. Decay in the overturned 

 sod is much quicker, hence the roots are not so likely to 

 possess the soil to the extent of frustrating the effort to 

 grow a crop successfully upon them the same season that 

 they are broken. 



Preparing the Soil. — The most important requisite 

 in preparing the ground for Russian brome grass would 

 seem to be cleanliness. As the young plants grow slow- 

 ly the first season, if not sown on. land that is reasonably 

 clean, the danger is imminent that weeds will over- 

 shadow the young plants to their injury, if not to their 

 destruction. It may, therefore, be sown with advan- 

 tage after a crop that has been cultivated, as corn, for 

 instance, or on ground that has been summer fallowed 

 during a part of the season or the whole of the same. 

 In northerly latitudes and on prairie soils, the plan 

 has proved satisfactory which ploughs the land the previ- 

 ous autumn and then uses upon it occasionally the har- 

 row or cultivator or both, until the seed is sown. In 

 this way the ground may be cleaned sufficiently to admit 

 of sowing the grass in June, but it is more common on 

 land prepared thus to sow the seed from August onward 

 according to the climatic conditions. 



When this grass is sown along with a crop of grain, 

 the preparation of the soil that is best suited to the needs 

 of the grain will also be that best suited to the needs of 

 Grasses — 12, 



