44 RANGE IMPROVEMENT IN CENTRAL TEXAS. 
was an open range, and free grass was the rule. Every year large 
quantities of this grass were cut and baled, and the hay was regarded 
as being excellent, though somewhat harsh. Since then the writer 
has found the same grass growing in other counties of central Texas, 
and quite as vigorously in the black-land valleys as in the red lands. 
In the immediate neighborhood of the grass station C. W. Merchant 
has two pastures kept as winter range for his white-faced thorough- 
bred cattle. The soilisa rather loose brown loam with a clay subsoil. 
The principal grass is the black grama, which grows abundantly and 
vigorously. A public road on the west side of one of these pastures 
separates it from the Parramore pasture, in which the surface soil is 
sandy. In this sandy land the black grama does not grow at all vigor- 
ously. Stockmen of the section agree in their statements that it will 
not grow well except in the heavier clay soils. At all events, the 
writer does not now recall a single pasture in all of central Texas in 
which it is growing to any decided extent, except where the soils are 
heavy, either red or black clay. Seeds were drilled and broadcasted 
in 1899 and again in 1900 in the grass garden, both in heavy and 
lighter soils. In each case a good stand was secured, but the best 
results were obtained from the plantings in the heavy soil. In central 
Texas this grass withstands the drought and bears pasturing very 
well. It grows tall enough for hay purposes, but as there are several 
better hay grasses that grow quite as well in the section, it is not 
recommended for hay. It is recommended, however, for pasture pur- 
poses. It is specially valuable for winter grazing, as the stems remain 
green long after the leaves have become brown, and to all appearances 
dead. As it isa perennial and seeds abundantly whenever there is 
rain in the early part of the year, it is valuable for the purpose of 
renovating worn-out or tramped-out native pastures. 
BuivuE Grama (Bouteloua oligostachya). 
In every county in central Texas blue grama is to be found a native 
in the pastures, and yet itis not nearly so common as the stockmen 
would like to have it. There are two very closely related species, 
the other being known to agrostologists as Bouteloua hirsuta, the 
seed heads of which are darker than the former, really the only dif- 
ference noticeable to the unscientific observer. Considering them as 
being practically the same, it may be said of them that they are not 
specially valuable as hay grasses. Though their stems are often tall 
enough to be cut, the leafage is neither heavy enough nor, as a rule, 
long enough for hay purposes. They grow well on the high arid 
plains and bench lands, and also in the lower and damper pasture 
lands. The blue grama is often confused in the minds of stockmen 
and farmers with buffalo grass, from which it differs in several impor- 
tant respects. 
