AGRICULTURAL GRASSES 49 



especially for its great power of withstanding drought. This 

 quality naturally fits the plant for use on railway slopes, and 

 for all burning soils and hot climates. Yet it endures both 

 cold and shade ; indeed, under these conditions the herbage is 

 more abundant. For golf links, putting greens, and recreation 

 grounds Red Fescue is unequalled in the endurance of hard 

 wear. It also offers the further advantage of needing mowing 

 less frequently than some other grasses, and for this reason it 

 is useful on banks and slopes. 



Red Fescue shoots rather later in the spring than Fine- 

 leaved Sheep's Fescue, and produces an abundance of small 

 herbage which fills up the bottom of a pasture, and also 

 renders it serviceable in ornamental grounds. The plant 

 flowers in June, and ripens seed about the middle of July. 

 This is one of the few grasses which improve as they get older, 

 the leaves and stems being actually more nutritious, as well 

 as of greater bulk, at the time of ripening seed than earlier in 

 the season. All cattle like the herbage, and with hares it is so 

 great a favourite that a quantity of seed should be sown where 

 this game is preserved in large numbers. Red Fescue must be 

 regarded as especially a pasture grass ; for hay it is of small 

 utiUty, and the lattermath is inconsiderable. Sinclair beheved 

 it to attain perfection in the second year, and hmited its 

 duration to seven or eight years. 



In the absence of the flowering culm, the i-eddish purple 

 base of the short sheaths, and the long, flexuous, shining, deep 

 gi-een, half-closed leaves, together with the pale-red under- 

 ground stolons, are a sufficient guide in determining this 

 variety. 



The seed resembles that of Festuca duriuscula, but is 

 larger and germinates well — decidedly better in the open air 

 than under artificial conditions. 



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