VELVET GRASS AND, CLOVERS. yas 
where it is native. In recent years it has been tried in many parts of 
the United States with varying degrees of success. It has proven 
most successful in the semiarid regions of the Northwest from Kansas 
and North Dakota to Washington. It is especially adapted for those 
regions where the rainfall is insufficient to grow forage crops without 
irrigation and yet the conditions do not approach the aridity of the 
desert. Such regions are found in the eastern part of the Great Plains, 
plateaus in the Rocky Mountains, and the Palouse region of eastern 
Washington. | 
The seed may be sown broadcast in the spring, at the rate of about 
20 pounds to the acre. The stand is usually thin the first year, but 
the second year it thickens up and forms a sod. In localities where 
winter wheat can be grown, brome grass can be sown in the fall. It 
is valuable for hay, but more especially for pasture. During mid- 
summer the foliage dries up more or less, but gives good pasture in 
early spring and late fall. The second year it yields large crops of 
palatable hay, but thereafter it is better adapted for pasture than for 
hay. (See Pl. VI, fig. 2.) 
VELVET Grass (//olcus lanatus). 
This grass is common in the Pacific coast region along roadsides, in 
abandoned fields and other waste places, and also is found encroaching 
upon pasture land. It is a native of Europe, but has been introduced 
into many parts of the United States. Opinions differ as to its useful- 
ness, some stigmatizing it as a vile weed, others referring to it as a 
valuable forage grass. It is not a very large yielder, but will thrive 
on poor soil where more valuable grasses fail. Hence in localities 
where the usual meadow and pasture grasses flourish the advent of 
velvet grass should be looked upon with disfavor, but on more sterile 
soil it furnishes a fair crop of forage where other grasses fail. It has 
been said that ** velvet grass is a good grass for poor land, and a poor 
grass for good land.” Velvet grass goes under the name of mesquite 
in many parts of the Northwest, but this name is more frequently 
applied to certain native grasses of the Southwest. 
On sandy soils along the coast and on peaty soils that dry out in 
summer, velvet grass is perhaps the most profitable hay and pasture 
grass, because the better grasses do not succeed. Stock usually refuse 
to eat it at first until driven to do so by hunger, but they will soon 
acquire a taste for it, and it is exceedingly nutritious. Its worst faults 
are its low yield and lack of palatability. 
CLOVERS. 
Red clover (77ifolium pratense) is in common cultivation through- 
out the northern portion of the Rocky Mountain and upper Pacitic 
coast regions and is rapidly coming into cultivation in the more moist 
