Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1886 [PAGE 209]

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201 others for meadow. Grasses for either should be hardy and productive. For a pasture-grass, a compact sod, large quantity of leaf, comparative fineness both of leaf and stalk, growth early or very late in the season, are especially desirable points. For a meadow-grass compactness of sod is not so essential; a greater proportion of seed-stalk is allowable, and the season of growth is comparatively unimportant. A few varieties are fairly well adapted for both purposes.

VARIETIES.

Timothy (Phleum pratense) stands at the head of the list in its widespread use and general popularity. A little coarse in straw, not very compact in sod, it is productive, weighs well for bulk, has a good value by chemical analysis, is fairly digestible and palatable. It will probably long maintain its place as the leading meadowgrass of the United States. Blue Grass (Poa pratensis), commonly called Kentucky Blue <xrass (and that of Illinois is the same), is in many respects almost a typical pasture grass. It forms a remarkably compact sod, apparently improves indefinitely with age, starts to grow early in the spring, has a mass of leaves with only small seed-stalk, grows well in the late autumn, and is perhaps unequalled in value as a winter grass. Its weakest point, probably, is. its slight growth in -dry weather. It makes palatable and nutritious hay when well handled, but the yield is too small for profit. It has little value in a rotation where the grass does not remain at least three years. There are intelligent farmers who dissent from the statement that the common blue grass of Illinois is the same as that which has become so famous in Kentucky. In some cases this dissent comes from calling some other grass blue grass; in others from observing it as grown on soils of different quality. I have found stalks of this grass growing in an Osage orange hedge-row on the University grounds which measured five feet, four and one-half inches in hight. Orown on thin, very dry soil, in a dry spring, the seed-stalks may be less than one foot long. Aside from some slight modifications from differences in soil and climate, it must be insisted on i h a t the grass is the same. A more surprising fact is that some Illinois farmers still consider this grass a troublesome pest. Bed top (Agrostis vulgaris) probably ranks next in general use. It is especially well adapted to wet lands, forms a compact sod, yields abundantly, and is moderately nutritious and palpable—much less so either for pasture or as hay when allowed to mature before use. For well drained land it has little claim to recognition, because better grasses will give at least equally good yields, but it will probably do fairly well on land too wet for any satisfactory growth of any other good grass. Orchard grass (Dactyli's glomerata) is both over-praised and abused. It grows in tufts, never making a compact sod, is coarse in leaf and stalk, becoming harsh and woody as it reaches maturity, and is not, at best, of first rank in composition and palatability. On the other hand, it starts growth very early, grows with great rapidity .after cutting, withstands drought well, is adapted to a wide range