Red fescue (Festuca rubra), Fig. 556, is occasion ally cultivated for lawns or in pasture mixtures, and is adapted to shady places. It grows on dry sandy soils and sterile uplands, making a fine, close sod. When seeded alone it is used at the rate of two and one-half bushels per acre. In grass mixtures it is used in small quantities. The seed weighs fourteen pounds to the bushel.
Rhode Island bent-grass (Agrostis canina), Fig. 539, is similar in habit of growth and adaptations to red-top, and much of what has been said regard ing that grass applies to this. It is especially valu able for lawns. Most of the seed is grown in Rhode Island and Connecticut.
Canada blue-grass (Poo comprcssa). Fig. 547. This grass has value for pasture in the North, par ticularly in the northeastern states, but is not a heavy yielder. It succeeds best on clay soils and is better adapted to sterile knolls and barren fields than any other cultivated grass. It also does well on sandy soils and withstands drought. It should be sown in mixtures with other grasses when used for hay or pasture. The seed is a common adulter ant of Kentucky blue-grass seed. [See pages 143, 144.] The plants can be distinguished by the flat stein of the Canada bluegrass; and the latter has a bluer color and does not grow so tall.
it in timothy and clover meadows.
When short rotations are practiced, the meadow being left down only one or two years, there is seldom any trouble from weeds. When the grass is left down for longer periods certain weeds become very abundant. In New England, quack-grass (Ag ropyron repens), Figs. 159, 564, white daisy (Chry santhemum Leucanthemum), buttercup (Ranunculus bulbosus), and orange hawkweed (Hieracium auran tiacurn), Figs. 156, 157, are the most troublesome, quack-grass being worse than the other three com bined. In the middle states, red-top (Agrostis alba), Fig. 538, creeps into the meadows and is considered a weed. Another weed known as white-weed (Erig eron Philadelphicus) is very prevalent in old mea dows. Quack-grass is beginning to appear in that section and ultimately will probably be as preva lent as it is in New England. On the Pacific coast west of the Cascade mountains, velvet-grass (Idol errs lanatus), Fig. 541, is the most prevalent weed in meadow lands. It may be exterminated by cut ting for hay before seed is formed, and disking the land repeatedly during the dry summer. This will exterminate the velvet-grass by the latter part of August, when any crop desired may be planted.
Velvet-grass is used locally in parts of north western United States for forage. It yields about a half ton of very light hay per acre, that is nutri tious but not palatable. The seed matures early and shatters badly, and in addition is easily wind borne, so that it is readily scattered.
Quack-grass is a widely distributed and trouble some weed in Europe and in southern Canada and the United States. Its extensively creeping rhizomes enable it to spread rapidly. It has some value as a forage, particularly in permanent mea dows or Pastures. It is both nutritious and pala table. A permanent sod must be gone over with a disk-harrow occasionally to loosen the sod. It is most useful as a soil-binder because of its persistent rootstocks. Quack-grass may be eradicated (accord ing to Beal) by plowing late in fall, or very early in spring, regardless of weather conditions, and then using a shovel-toothed cultivator every three days till the middle of June. All green leaves must be persistently kept down. The harrow must cut off the stems below the surface of the ground to be effec tive. It is not worth while to plow deep or to rake out the rootstocks. The plant can be eradicated faster by thorough work in the spring growing season than later in dry weather. A cultivated crop should first be used on the land, and all of the grass that comes up persistently chopped out with a hoe. The only cure is entirely to rid the soil of the roots and seeds.
Cowpeas. (Fig. 371.) The most important hay crop in the cotton-belt is cowpeas. When sown for hay they are usually sown alone after a crop of small grain. The yield is seldom less than a ton per acre and sometimes as much as three tons, or even more. Two tons, however, may be considered a good yield. The hay is most excellent, especially when the seed-pods are numerous and well filled. Cowpeas are somewhat difficult to cure for hay. A method more or less generally used is to bunch the hay on poles set in the ground and extending to a height of five or six feet. Two cross-pieces about four feet long are nailed to the poles about six inches from the ground. The hay is then piled on until it tops the stake. In this way cowpea hay may be cured in any kind of weather. Cowpea hay may be readily cured by the use of hay caps made of No. 10 ducking cut forty inches square, attach ing a small weight to each corner.