THE GRASS CROP 



7 



usually sown with oats when grown for hay. It also 

 includes the cow-peas of the South when cut for hay, 

 though these are practically never sown with grain. 

 Under " Forage Crops " are included sorghum, Kafir- 

 corn, milo maize, Indian corn, etc., when cut and fed in 

 the green state, made into silage, or when grown for the 

 fodder alone, as all of these crops except Indian corn 

 and Kafir-corn usually are. The two latter, when 

 grown for grain, are not included here. 



The crop designated 1 1 other tame grasses " is by 

 far the most important of all. It includes timothy, 

 timothy and clover, redtop, orchard-grass, brome-grass, 

 meadow-fescue, tall meadow oat-grass, etc. There are 

 no definite data to indicate in what proportion these 

 grasses occur, but common observation and extensive 

 correspondence with farmers indicate that the area of 

 all others together is decidedly small when compared 

 with the area of timothy, or a mixture of timothy and 

 clover, and we may fairly refer to the region producing 

 this crop as the " timothy region." Omitting for the 

 present the wild grasses, these hay crops will be con- 

 sidered in the order of their importance. 



By reference to the map (Fig. 17), it will be seen 

 that the crop designated as ' ' other tame grasses ' ' oc- 

 curs principally north of the Ohio River and east of the 

 w r est line of Missouri and Iowa. The area of this crop 

 is given as 31,302,000 acres. It therefore constitutes 

 74 per cent, of the total area of tame hay. The aver- 

 age yield is 1.1 tons per acre, making a total of 35,- 

 624,000 tons of hay, consisting almost exclusively of 

 timothy, or timothy and clover. The yield per acre 

 of this crop is lower than that of any other tame hay 



