XI 



BROME-GRASS (Bromus inermis) 



TJ ROME-GRASS (Fig. 34) is One of the few recently 

 ii introduced grasses that have won a perma- 

 teMi nent place in American agriculture. Its in- 

 troducTtion is to be credited to the work of the 

 State experiment stations and the National Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture. It has been grown by them ex- 

 perimentally for a good many years, but began to 

 attradl general attention in the early nineties. It was 

 at first heralded by enthusiastic seedsmen as a panacea 

 for all the ills of the farmer. Without question it is 

 the best pasture-grass yet found for the Prairie States 

 of the Northwest and Pacific Northwest. On the great 

 wheat-producing soils of the se(ftions mentioned it is 

 a pasture-grass unequaled in produdti%-eness by any 

 other pasture-grass in the country (unless we except 

 the Bermuda grass of the South), and surpassed only 

 by blue-grass in the quality of its herbage. It is now 

 firmly intrenched in the favor of farmers from Kansas" 

 to the Canadian line and west to the Cascade Moun- 

 tains of Oregon and Washington. It is also a valuable 

 grass for moderately dry uplands in parts of California. 

 It is distinctly a Northern grass, having never suc- 

 ceeded south of the latitude of St. I^ouis, except at 

 high elevations in the Mountain States. It is perfedlly 

 hardy, even in Manitoba. In the dry summers of the 

 Northern Pacific Coast region (east of the Cascade 

 164 



