THE AGRICULTURAL GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 63 



Phelum pratense. (Timothy, Herd's grass.) 



This is one of the commonest and best-known grasses. For a hay 

 crop it is, perhaps, the most valuable, especially in the Northern States. 

 The heighth of the grass depends on the soil and cultivation. In poor 

 ground it may be reduced to 1 foot, while in good soil and with good 

 culture it readily attains 3 feet, and occasionally has been found twice 

 that height. It is a perennial grass with fibrous roots. The base of the 

 culm is sometimes thickened and inclined to be bulbous. The culm is 

 erect and firm, with four or five leaves, which are erect and usually 

 from 4 to G inches long. The flower spike varies from 2 to 6 inches in 

 length, is cylindrical and very densely flowered. The spikelets are 

 sessile, single-flowered, and cylindrical or oblong in outline. The outer 

 glumes are rather wedge-form, with a mucronate point or short bristle. 

 The main nerve on the back is fringed with a few short hairs. The 

 flowering glume is shorter than the outer ones and thinner, five-nerved, 

 and toothed at the apex. The palet is thinner in texture and much 

 narrower. 



This grass, as known in cultivation, is supposed to have been intro- 

 duced from Europe, but it is nndoubtedly indigenous in the mountain 

 regions of New England, New York, and the Eocky Mountains. It is 

 said that about the year 1711 a Mr. Herd found this grass in a swamp 

 in New Hampshire and cultivated it. From him it took the name of 

 Herd's grass. About the year 1720 it was brought to Maryland by 

 Timothy Hanson and received the name of Timothy grass. It is now 

 the favorite and prevailing meadow grass over a large part of the 

 country. 



Mr. Charles L. Flint says : 



As a crop to cut for bay it is probably unsurpassed by any other grass now culti- 

 vated. Though somewhat coarse and hard, especially if allowed to ripen its seed, 

 yet if cat in the blossom or directly after, it is greatly relished hj all kinds of stock 

 and especially so by horses, while it possesses a large percentage of nutritive matter 

 in comparison with other agricultural grasses. It is olteu sown with clover, but the 

 best practical farmers are beginning to discontinue this custom on account of the dif- 

 ferent times of blossoming of the t^wo crops. It grows very readily and yields very 

 large crops on favorable soils. It yields a large quautity of seed to the acre, vary- 

 ing from 10 to 30 bushels on rich soils. 



(Plate 49.) 



Sporoboltjs Indicus. (Smut grass.) 



This grass is a native of India, but has spread over most tropical and 

 warm climates. It occurs more or less abundantly in all the Southern 

 States, and is called smut grass, from the fact that after flowering the 

 heads become affected with a black smut. It grows in tufts or loose 

 patches, is erect, from 1^ to 3 feet high, with an abundance of long, 

 flat, fine pointed leaves near the base, and a narrow, terminal panicle 

 frequently a foot in length, composed of short, erect, sessile branches, 

 which are very closely flowered. The spikelets are narrow, less than a 



