18 CIRCULAR 328, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



material by the early settlers in the Plains area. Many of these old 

 sod houses dot the landscape in western Kansas, and a few of them 

 are still used as residences. 



Virgin stands of this grass have been successfully used for many 

 years for lawns, golf courses, athletic fields, college campuses, and, 

 more recently, for airplane landing fields, erosion control, and road- 

 side improvement. Too many acres of the native prairie were plowed 

 up and placed under cultivation before the value of buffalo grass 

 was fully appreciated. 



LAWNS OF BUFFALO GRASS 



The lawns of buffalo grass have many distinct advantages in the 

 Great Plains area. Buffalo grass is especially adapted to dry-land 

 conditions, being the only satisfactory lawn grass able to survive 

 extended periods of drought with no irrigation. It requires much 

 less care and attention than other common lawn grasses and therefore 

 makes an ideal farm lawn. Kentucky bluegrass when carefully 

 handled and repeatedly irrigated often fails to survive the dry atmos- 

 phere and hot summers of the central and southern Plains, and Ber- 

 muda grass is not winter-hardy in the central and northern Plains. 

 V. L. Cory 6 reports that " buffalo grass makes a much better lawn 

 than curly mesquite grass in Texas." 



Although buffalo grass may be successfully established and main- 

 tained in the Great Plains without the aid of irrigation, where possible 

 it will be found helpful to irrigate immediately after the lawn is set 

 out and during periods of excessive drought thereafter. By judicious 

 applications of irrigation water a buffalo-grass lawn may be kept 

 attractive from the first part of May until killing frost occurs in the 

 fall. 



PASTURES 



Buffalo grass is a rather low producer, but it is highly nutritious 

 and an exceedingly palatable pasture grass. Its ability to persist 

 where most grasses fail, to withstand severe tramping and heavy 

 grazing, and to recover promptly from the effects of drought contribute 

 to its value as a pasture crop. When moderately grazed during the 

 summer it cures naturally on the ground and provides excellent winter 

 pasturage. 



EROSION PREVENTION 



Buffalo grass may be used to advantage in controlling run-off and 

 erosion on terraced and unterraced slopes. It takes root and spreads 

 almost as fast on severely eroded land as it does on fertile soil (fig. 11). 



According to actual measurements made at this station by the 

 Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture, the run-off loss from land having a slope of 5 percent amounted 

 to 0.04 percent of the annual rainfall on undipped buffalo grass, 

 0.59 percent on close-clipped buffalo grass, 15.06 percent on fallow 

 land, 16.11 percent on kafir land, and 8.84 percent on wheatland as 

 averages of the 4-year period, 1930-33. The average quantities of 

 soil lost by erosion during this period were practically negligible on 

 the buffalo grass, but were 13.64 tons per acre on the fallow land, 

 13.21 tons on the kafir land, and 2.08 tons on the wheatland. 7 



6 Range botanist, Texas Range Experiment Station, Sonora, Tex. 



7 These data were furnished by F. G. Ackerman, of the Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, U.S. Department 

 of Agriculture. 



