230 SOILS AND PLANT LIFE 



be cut until a sufficient amount of food has been stored 

 in the corms to provide for the later, spreading growth. 

 This is usually not until the seed is in the dough stage, 

 or when the purple stamens have all, or nearly all, dropped 

 away. Cutting that is done earUer than this very often 

 results in injury to the succeeding timothy crop, this being 

 especially true in dry seasons, or in regions of scant rain- 

 fall. Examine some timothy plants at your first oppor- 

 timity while haying is going on and find the corms at the 

 bases of the stems. If these corms are eaten by stock, the 

 plants are, of course, injured, — which means that timothy 

 should not be pastured in the fall. 



The first point above, that of yield and quality, of the 

 hay, is not in conflict with the second one just discussed. 

 If cut too young, timothy will shrink badly ; but if it is 

 allowed to become too ripe, the hay is woody and unde- 

 sirable. Fortunately, at the time when the seed is just 

 formed and in the dough stage, the corms contain enough 

 nourishment to insure proper subsequent growth. 



Blue Grass 



169. The Character and Value of Blue Grass. — " Give 

 blue grass credit for having fought its own way alone and 

 unhelped. Without any aid of man, it came to the new 

 clearing ; it grew about the cabin dooryard ; it carpeted 

 the newly cleared pasture; it enriched and beautified 

 the roadside ; it held the clayey hillside and the animals 

 cropped it and waxed fat. Not com, not wheat, not 

 tobacco, but blue grass, became the chief article of export 

 from the Central West, going out disguised as beef, mutton, 

 or pork, a large part of each being of its making. Of the 

 miUions of blue grass pastures in America, only a few have 

 ever had seed of this grass sown upon them." ' 

 'Wing's Meadows and Pastures. 



