ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 223 



qualities, qualites that will make themselves seen immediately in 

 the milk pail or immediately in the way of putting on flesh. ' 



Then there is another great disadvantage, and that is if 

 timothy is cut very close it is more likely to be injured than 

 many other grasses. Our timothy is often quite severely hurt 

 by the winter. We have cut it at different, heights just to see 

 how it would stand the winter, and I think you all know that the 

 bulbous character of the lower part of the stem is destroyed by 

 very close seeding; if the plants are not killed outright they are 

 very much weakened, and you don't get a healthy growth after- 

 wards. Dispite these drawbacks, there are many farmers who 

 will stick to timothy and think it is the best grass they can use, 

 and perhaps they are right. 



But here is a grass that certainly ranks very much higher 

 on the scale of points we have used, orchard grass. We have 

 raised this for five years in an experimental way and tested it 

 side by side with timothy, ryegrass, red-top and quite a number 

 of other varieties, and I can say from our observation and ex- 

 periments, that this is one of the most valuable grasses. It 

 springs up more quickly, it can be cut earlier, makes an earlier 

 bite for pasture than any other that we have tried, with the pos- 

 sible exception of the meadow fox tail which is also a very early 

 grass. The orchard grass stands our winters perfectly well, 

 and there seems to be little tendency for it to run out. We have 

 a piece six or seven years old which is just as good to-day as 

 when first established, and I have known of several fields of 

 orchard grass that are over twenty years old, in New York 

 State, that are now in very good condition. Then, another 

 thing is that it has a much larger leaf development. One objec- 

 tion, perhaps, to the orchard grass would be that it grows in 

 bunches or tufts ; then another objection is that it loses in value 

 very rapidly after it has reached the right stage of maturity for 

 cutting. We have tested this quite carefully by making analyses 

 at different stages, and it changes much more rapidly than other 

 grasses. In our state this is one of the best grasses that we 

 have. The seed of the orchard grass is very light ; it weighs 



