98 FARM GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 



One of the best authorities on the subjedt in the Cen- 

 tral West says it takes three years under the best con- 

 ditions to get a good stand of blue-grass, and that it 

 takes ten, fifteen, or twenty years to get a first-class 

 blue-grass pasture. "The very best blue-grass pas- 

 tures we have ever seen are on lands that have never 

 been profaned by the plow." The same authority 

 recommends that every two or three years a blue- grass 

 pasture should be disked throughly and sown to a mix- 

 ture of mammoth, red, and alsike clover. Pastures 

 thus treated furnish feed during midsummer when blue- 

 grass is ordinarily dormant. 



The difficulty of starting blue-grass is increased by 

 the fa6l that much of the seed on the market is of low 

 germinating quality. It has been shown by the inves- 

 tigations of the United States Department of Agricul- 

 ture that the cause of this is faulty methods of han- 

 dling the seed during the harvest. Where large areas 

 are to be harvested much of the seed is gathered too 

 green. In curing it is customary to pile the freshly 

 stripped seed in long, narrow ricks a foot and a half 

 to three or four feet high. When heaped together 

 thus the mass heats rapidly, and frequently the ger- 

 minating power is thus completely destroyed. Tem- 

 peratures of 148 ° F. have been observed in such ricks 

 twenty hours after the seed was thus heaped, and 

 only 3 per cent, of the seed retained its germinat- 

 ing power at that time. So general was this faulty 

 method of curing blue-grass seed a few years ago, that 

 seed laboratories considered a germination of 25 per 

 cent, excellent. Even now 45 to 50 per cent, is the 

 figure usually given as the standard for germinating 



