ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 225 



transplanting. In the spring the soil is smoking with fermenta- 

 tion; chemical changes are taking place very rapidly at that 

 time and those changes are very favorable for the growth of 

 young plants. There are some who must do all they can in the 

 fall and might better attend to seeding at this time than wait 

 until spring and then do the work poorly. One of the difficulties 

 of our climate is we have no spring worth mentioning. We have 

 long winters, long summers, and fine autumns, but no spring to 

 speak of, and of course if we can save a day in the spring by 

 doing the work in the fall we are glad to do it. 



I think that the red top is perhaps too well known for me to 

 dwell upon. We like that very much upon our rather moist 

 river bottom ground. It makes a very large yield of hay, very 

 much more than timothy, weight for weight, about the same as 

 orchard grass. Orchard grass grows up more quickly after it 

 is cut ? and I don't know of any of our grasses that yield a 

 heavier aftermath than does the orchard grass. I would never 

 recommend that orchard grass be sown upon poor ground. Our 

 ground is in a good state of cultivation and unless your ground 

 is in good condition it is hardly worth while to sow orchard 

 grass. 



I would not advise anyone who has not used these grasses, 

 orchard grass, or the tall oat grass or rye grass, or a few others 

 that I might mention, to go out and buy large quantities of seed 

 and sow them on a large scale, but I would advise them to test 

 them carefully on a small piece of land, watch the results very 

 patiently, and if these varieties don't do better than those you 

 now have upon your farm, why just drop them. If they do 

 better, and I am inclined to think you will find that many of 

 them will do better, why, then give them a larger trial. 



It seems strange to me that when so much depends upon 

 the value of our grasses that so little attention is paid to the 

 selection of varieties. When you go to a horticultural meeting 

 why nearly all that you hear is the question of varieties, and the 

 greatest nicety of opinion and judgment is brought into question 

 to discriminate between the varieties of strawberries or rasp- 



