28 THE AGRICULTURAL GRASSES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



Bermuda is essentially a Southern summer-pasture grass, and as such 

 possesses sui^erior qualities. It will thrive upon poor soil and stand 

 the heat and drought of summer. It is nutritious, and is eaten by all 

 kinds of stock. It is permanent when once well set, provided it is pas- 

 tured ; otherwise, the broom sedge and other grasses will run it out. 

 It requires tramping to flourish. The objections it encountered during 

 the first years of its introduction have gradually given way, as the 

 farmers have seen more of it and have become better acquainted with 

 its nature and habits. To make hay it requires a rich soil — a soil rich 

 enough to produce good crops of timothy and the more valuable grasses. 

 It is an ameliorating crop. A field kept in Bermuda a few years will be- 

 come so enriched that should it be wanted for cultivation the increased 

 crops will more than pay for the extra labor and expense required the 

 first year on account of the sod. 



Often in the reports a request is made for a grass that will do well 

 on their exhausted lands and yield some return while they are being re- 

 cuperated. Lands naturally fertile, but depleted by cropping, if not 

 ^' turned out in commons," can be recuperated by proper management 

 through the agency of ameliorating crops, the particular ones* to be 

 used varying with the different conditions of location, nature of soil, 

 &c., and cannot be entered into minutely here, but which the intelligent 

 cultivator will soon learn to determine. 



Immediate and constant returns, as some ask for, should not be ex- 

 pected from a soil already exhausted. But in a short time, by generous 

 treatment, they can be brought to a condition to once more reward the 

 toiler for his labor, and will prove in the end to be much more econom- 

 ical than to "turn the fields out" and wait thirty or forty years for the 

 slow process of natural recuperation, expending meantime ones ener- 

 gies in clearing and bringing into cultivation new tracts, to be in turn 

 abandoned and turned out." 



Some ask for a grass that will do well upon a soil naturally poor or 

 barren. Such a soil will not yield anything without fertilizing except 

 a few worthless weeds or some of the coarser plants. G-ood grasses 

 will not grow on land that will not produce medium crops of grain. By 

 using fertilizers and turning under green crops the productiveness can 

 be increased so as to give fair returns, and then by suitable rotation 

 the land can be continuously improved. 



EXPERIMENTS. 



In nearly one-half of the counties, according to the reports, no ex- 

 periments introducing new grasses have been made, while in many of 

 the other counties they have been made only on a small scale, and were 

 too often abandoned as failures before they had been fully tested. Fail- 

 ures frequently result from not fully understanding the nature and re- 



