1 68 FARM GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES 



or may not be true, but it shows that grass problems 

 are not pressing in that sedtion. Yet it is probably 

 true that brome-grass w*ould add much to the produc- 

 tiveness of pastures, even in Ohio. J. E. Wing, the 

 well-known agricultural writer and ledlurer, whose 

 farm is in west central Ohio, says that a mixture of 

 brome-grass and alfalfa will carry six times as much 

 stock there as blue-grass, and do it better. Yet both 

 of these crops are, or were until very recently, nearly 

 unknown in that State. Alfalfa is now rapidly gain- 

 ing favor throughout the timothy region, and it is 

 probable that brome-grass will, in time, do the same 

 over much of this region. 



It has been stated on a previous page that palata- 

 bility is perhaps the most important single character- 

 istic of a grass. If stock like it sufficiently well to eat 

 enough to fatten on, it deserves attention. It is not 

 claimed that brome-grass is as palatable as blue-grass, 

 but the former is eaten readily by all classes of stock, 

 and its superior productiveness would render it more 

 profitable than blue-grass in all sections except those 

 w T here blue-grass is at its best, such as the Blue- 

 Grass Region of Kentucky, north Missouri, and south- 

 western Iowa. Since brome-grass is more a pasture than 

 a hay grass, and as the farmers of the eastern part 

 of the timothy region are gradually abandoning the 

 use of pastures in favor of more productive methods of 

 raising feed r it is doubtful if brome-grass has an im- 

 portant place to fill in that section. But farther west, 

 where beef production renders pastures necessary, it 

 would undoubtedly add to the profit of the farmer. 



Brome-grass was at first heralded as a great hay- 



