264 Twenty-First Biennial Eepoet 



the soil, and its seeds can not be found in a reserved sam- 

 ple of the mixture sown. In 1907 the growth in both plots 

 consisted of red-top largely — about four-fifths — I esti- 

 mate. With this were a few tufts and plants of velvet 

 grass (Holcus lanatus), alsike clover, white clover, or- 

 chard grass, timothy and smooth brome grass. 



From experience such as this, and from observations 

 made for a good many years on the operations of farm- 

 ers, I have been driven to the conclusion that we can 

 make better mixtures than we can buy, and that the ones 

 calculated to give us most in value for our money and 

 time are very simple mixtures of a few species known to 

 thrive under our conditions. 



Timothy, tall oats grass, English blue grass, Ken- 

 tucky blue grass, red-top, red clover, trefoil, alsike clover 

 and white clover, are the species from which a choice must 

 be made in selecting a mixture for most situations in 

 Kentucky. Two or three of the grasses with one or two 

 of the clovers may be expected to give better results than 

 a large variety. Such grasses as perennial rye grass, 

 meadow foxtail, velvet grass and some others recom- 

 mended for European meadow, appear to suffer from 

 our rather uneven winter weather. 



No doubt as time moves along, we shall learn to 

 make use of some grasses and clovers with which we are 

 unfamiliar, and doubtless also we shall get strains of 

 some of those we do know that will give us better re- 

 sults than we are now getting. When we have reached 

 our best development as an agricultural State we shall 

 doubtless also regularly employ many of the supple- 

 mentary feeds instead of depending entirely on our 

 grasses and grains. But in the immediate future, I be- 

 lieve we shall make greatest progress by giving careful 

 attention to the improvement of our com, oats, timothy, 

 orchard grass and clovers, the plants we now have and 

 understand best. 



I wish to insist that these are the crops of most im- 

 portance to Kentucky farmers and to the State. They 

 are the crops which will respond soonest to efforts made 

 for their improvement. Their improvement means more 

 money to Kentucky as a whole than improvement in any- 

 thing else we grow. 



