24 GRAMINEAE (GRASS FAMILY) 
with fine appressed hair; the two lateral spikelets have pedicels 
and are staminate or empty. So rapid a grower is the grass that 
two, three, even four, heavy crops of hay 
may be harvested yearly, if cut before it 
blooms; the hay is much relished by all 
kinds of stock and is very fattening ; even 
the rootstocks are tender and sweet, and 
hogs eat them eagerly ; were it not so ag- 
gressive it would be a most valued plant. 
(Fig. 4.) 
Means of control 
With a view toward finding some 
means of eradication, J. S. Cates, of the 
Bureau of Plant Industry at Washington, 
was employed by the.Government to make 
a special study of the plant, and the results 
of his experiments and conclusions are 
embodied in Farmers’ Bulletin 279 of the 
U. S. Department of Agriculture. He 
states that the rootstocks are of three 
kinds, which he classifies as primary, 
secondary, and tertiary. 
“Primary rootstocks embrace all the 
rootstocks alive in the ground at the begin- 
ning of the growing season in the spring. 
‘Secondary rootstocks are those which 
; arise from the primaries, come to the sur- 
Fic. 4. — Johnson-grass face and there form crowns, thus producing 
(Sorghum halepense). X 3. new plants. 
: _ “A tertiary rootstock is one starting later 
in the season, about flowering time, from the base of the crown of this 
new plant. 
“These tertiary rootstogks, when the ground is soft, and especially 
when a large top is allowed to develop, grow to a large diameter and 
penetrate to a great depth, sometimes as much as four feet and normally 
from fifteen to thirty inches; at other times, when the soil is compact, 
and especially when the plant above ground is not allowed to develop 
by reason of mowing or grazing, or both, the tertiary rootstocks grow 
to but small diameter and run along just under the surface, cropping 
out at intervals to form new plants. Our observations indicate that 
