GREEN FORAGE AND HAY CROPS 101 
With the close of the second season, most of the clover disappears 
and the decaying clover roots will nourish the timothy which re- 
mains, so that a much larger yield of that grass is thereby obtained: 
Kentucky blue grass, often called June grass (Poa pratensis) , 
is a common. grass in the meadows and pastures in northeastern 
United States and also in other parts of the country. It makes a 
compact sod when once established, is greatly relished by all kinds 
of stock, and has high nutritious properties. 
“ Blue grass ripens in early summer, having largely gathered the 
necessary food materials from air and soil during the preceding late 
summer and fall. With the coming of spring it pushes forward so 
vigorously that early in May the fields wear a thick, nutritious car- 
pet of grass, and a little later the seed heads show. With seed- 
bearing late in May, the plant’s energies have been exhausted, and 
blue grass enters a period of rest which lasts several weeks. During 
this time there is little growth, and if a midsummer drought 
occurs the plants turn brown and appear to be dying. They 
quickly revive with the coming of the fall rains, and again the 
pastures are green and growing. They have had their rest, and 
each plant is once more busy gathering nourishment for the coming 
season’s seed-bearing. The observant stockman soon learns that 
it is not wise to rely on blue-grass pasture for a steady and uniform 
feed supply for his cattle throughout the whole season. Accordingly 
he understocks the pasture in spring, so that the excess of herbage 
during May and June remains to be drawn upon during the mid- 
summer dormant period, or he fully stocks it and makes up the 
later shortage by partial soilage. In some districts it has been 
found profitable to graze blue-grass pastures lightly, or not at all 
in summer, and allow the self-cured herbage to stand for winter 
grazing. Kentucky blue grass is primarily a pasture grass and 
should be so regarded.’’!° 
Red top (Agrostis alba) is esvecially valuable for moist lands 
sown in mixtures with other grasses. It is slow in starting growth 
in spring and does not reach full development when other grasses 
in the mixture are ready to be cut, but it produces leaves and stems 
late in the fall and makes a good second growth for pasture. It 
produces an abundance of pasturage on suitable soils, and makes 
a fairly palatable hay of fine stems and numerous leaves, although 
it is not considered equal to timothy hay in quality, and when 
present in timothy reduces the market value of this hay. 
Orchard grass (Dactylis glomerata) is mostly grown along the 
°“ Feeds and Feeding,” p, 167. 
* Henry, loc. cit., p. 166. 
