Beet 2 5 
~ to rot suddenly, destroying even the roots. This I have never seen or heard men- 
tioned by any other person, but it occurred on my own farm one season, where I was 
reserving a lot for seed. 
(Plate 86.) 
Lolium temulentum (Poison Darnel). 
This species is frequently found in grain fields. The seeds have 
long enjoyed a reputation of being poisonous to stock, and also to man- 
kind when mixed in large quantity with the wheat or rye used in 
the making of bread. The question seems hardly yet decided, but it is 
best to exterminate the grass as a weed and a pest. 
AGROPYRUM. 
Spikelets several-flowered (three to nine, or more), compressed, alternately sessile 
on the continuous or slightly-notched rhachis of the simple spike, and with the side — 
against the rhachis; outer glumes nearly equat and opposite, membranaceous or 
herbaceous, one to three-nerved, scarcely keeled, tapering to a point or awned; the 
flowering similar to the outer ones, rounded on the back; three to seven-nerved, 
pointed or awned from the apex; palet nearly as long as its glume, the two prominent 
nerves almost marginal, scabrous ciliate. 
Agropyrum glaucum (Blue Stem; Bluejoint). 
This species, which has been considered a variety of the next, pre- 
vails on the Western plains from Texas to Montana, and is well 
known to stockmen. It differs from Agropyrum repens in having a 
stiffer, more erect and rigid stem and leaves, the leaves often becoming 
involute. It is generally of a light, bluish-green color. The spike is 
generally shorter, denser, and with larger spikelets. 
Professor Scribner, writing of this grass in Montana, says: 
It is the most highly praised of the native grasses for hay. Wherever it occupies 
exclusively any large area of ground, as it does frequently in the lower districts, 
especialy near Fort Benton, it is cut for hay. Naturally it does not yield a great 
bulk, but its quality is unsurpassed. After two or three cuttings the yield of hay 
diminishes so much that it is scarcely worth the harvesting. It isthen customary to 
drag a short-toothed harrow over the sod, which breaks up the creeping roots or 
underground stems, and each fragment then makes a new plant. 
The same valuable opinion of this grass is entertained by stockmen 
in Nebraska, Colorado, and New Mexico. It occurs nearly everywhere, 
but sparsely, on the plains, and extending quite up into the mountains. 
In the valleys and along streams it frequently forms large patches and 
grows closer and more abundant, when it is commonly cut for winter 
use. (Plate 87.) 
Agropyrum repens (Couch Grass; Quack Grass). 
There has been a good deal of discussion relative to this grass, some 
pronouncing it one of the vilest of weeds, and others claiming for it 
high nutritive qualities cverweighing all the disadvantages of its growth. 
Whichever party may be right, it is proper that farmers should be ac- 
quainted with it in order to know how to treat it, and hence our de- 
scription. It forms a dense sod by means of its far-reachin g rhizomas or 
_* root stocks, which bave short joints, and roots tenaciously at every joint. 
