= 
sided leaves to each plant, and radical leaves often numbering thirty toastalk. The 
. root is perennial and throws off numerous and long-creeping root-stocks, enabling it 
to form a dense matted tuft. The chief reputation of this grass is as a pasture grass ; 
the sod is easily obtained and very enduring, there being no such thing known as 
its running out on good land. - Pastures sixty years unbroken afford their owners an 
annual profit of at least $10 an acre. It starts very early in the spring, and grows 
rapidly after being grazed off. It will furnish more late feed than most grasses, and 
no amount of pasturing is sufficient to utterly destroy it. It endures the frosts of 
winter better than any other grass on the continent, and therefore pushes its way 
northward into the Arctic Circle. Severe droughts injure blue grass, yet it grows as 
far south as the hilly parts of Georgia and Alabama, and in Arkansas, not, however, 
as vigorously as farther north. Although in a drought it often becomes dry enough 
to burn, it is greedily eaten by stock; it dries full of nourishing properties, and cattle 
will fatten upon it unless it has been drenched with rains. Blue grass can not be re- 
commended for the meadow, as it is hard to cut and difficult to cure; the foliage is | 
too short and too light after being dried. 
It is an excellent grass for lawns, as it makes a dense, uniform mat of verdure, 
and sends up but one flowering stem a year; for this purpose it is thickly seeded and 
and kept closely mown. 
An experienced Kentucky agriculturist says the season of sowing 
may be any time from August to April. 
The seed should be sown from 14 to 24 bushels per acre, and lightly brushed in on 
a well-prepared surface. The seed may be sown on a grain field without any prepara- 
tion. Some prefer to sow on small grain in February or March, on the snow. One 
advantage in this is the evenness with which the seed may be sown. If the sowing 
is done later it would be advisable to harrow the field before suwing it, and roll it 
_afterward. A very loose or open surface is fatal to blue grass in the young state if 
the weather be the least dry. No stock should be permitted on the grass the first 
year. Blue grass is sometimes destroyed in sandy soils by cattle, which in grazing 
pull itup. In stiff clay this is not so likely to happen. 
(Plate 75.) 
Poa serotina (Fowl Meadow Grass). 
Culms erect, 2. or 3 feet high, without running rootstocks. The leaves are nar- 
rowly linear, 3 to 6 inches long, and 2 to 3 lines wide, the sheaths long, smooth, and 
striate, the ligules long. The panicle varies with the size of the plant, from 5 to 10 
or 12 inches long and 1 to 3 inches wide and lax; the branches mostly in fives or 
more numerous, nearly erect, from 1 to 4 inches long, the longer ones subdivided and 
flowering above the middle. There are some mountain forms or varieties in which _ 
the culms are 1 foot or less in height and the panicle greatly reduced. The spike- 
lets are 1 to2 lines long, two to five-fiowered, on short pedicels. The outer glumes 
are about 1 line long and sharp-pointed. The flowering glume is rather obtuse, the 
lateral nerves not prominent, slightly pubescent on the margins below, and somewhat 
webby at the base. 
This species is most common in the Northern States, particularly in 
New England, New York, and westward to Wisconsin, and also in re- 
- duced forms in all mountainous districts. 
Professor Beal says: 
_--~=«-‘The name fowl] meadow grass is said to have been applied to this grass because 
: _ ducks and other wild water-birds were supposed to have introduced the grass intoa 
_~ poor, low meadow in Dedham, Mass, 
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