SHEEP-FARMING IN THE WEST. \\1 



Colorado, says : " Botanists, I believe, make out over 

 fifty varieties of grasses in Colorado alone. Some of 

 these so closely resemble each other as to be regarded 

 by the unscientific as one and the same. Not every 

 person growing stock in Colorado can with certainty 

 tell the difference between gramma grass, buffalo 

 grass, buchloe dactyloides, or sheep fescue (festuca 

 ovina). They are generally confounded under one 

 name, as gramma or buffalo grass, and while to the 

 scientific they vary, they are described by the practical 

 herdsman as one. They are the great grasses of the 

 Plains, and constitute the bulk of the winter pasture. 

 When not artificially irrigated they grow on the up- 

 lands from one and a half to two and a half inches 

 high, less rather than more, having a dark-green leaf, 

 inclining to curl, the buffalo more than the true gramma. 

 When ripened by the June sun they assume a brown 

 color rather than a straw or yellow, and give a sombre 

 aspect to the great Plains. When the new growth 

 commences in the spring it is not by new shoots but 

 an elongation of the old ones, carrying the brown hay 

 of the former years on the end of its green leaf. The 

 gramma grasses do not grow tall or produce seed un- 

 less irrigated, when they seed at about twelve to six- 

 teen inches in height, making most excellent hay. 

 There is only one other herd-grass deserving especial 

 mention, it is the bunch-grass (festuca duriuscula). There 

 are many grasses growing in bunches, but this is the 

 one known by that name, and a great favorite to the 

 herdsman as well as to the cattle, both from its nutri- 

 tious quality and from the fact of its standing taller 



