The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1871-05-16

American climate will not consecutlvely,
year after year, produce. No grass, not
even red clover, springs up so rapidly
after cutting as this. We have known it
in showery weather to start fully three
inches within a week after cutting, and
80 continue for repeated cuttings through
out the season, retaining its verdure into
the latest frosts, and then affording q
pasturage sweet and nutritious, inviting
to all kinds Of farm stock inclined to
grazing.
I'd. AS hay, its quality is good, when
cut in its early flower, but inferior when
gone to seed, attaining then a woody
fibre, as before remarked yet, when cut
and steamed, equal in nutritious quality
to other late-cut grasses. The steaming
or cooking process reduces its fibrous stalk
to o comparative pulp, rendering it palata-
BILE to the taste Of animals, and congenial
to the action Of the stomach for nutritious
purposes. As hay, it cures readily; its
long growth renders it easy to rake and
handle it stores compactly in either
stack or now ; cuts easily with the hay.
knife in the NOW when fed dry in Winter,
and is every way as convenient,as long
fodder as any other. Such IRE its qualities
for hay.
Sd. As soiling stock through the Sum-
mer months is now rapidly coming into
practice, we can do no greater service to
the farmer--more particularly to the
dairyman-than to recommend the Or
chard grass for that purpose and for the
following reasons 1t is early. 1t grows
continuously throughout the Summer and
Fall seasons. 1t is permanent in its &C.
cupation of the soil, having a strong,
fbrous root maintains its hold in clumps
or tussocks, against any and oil other
grasses, even the blue grass--whioh crowds
out almost every other--making no in
roads on its possession when once fairly
rooted. We have field of it, on a
strong clayey loan, which has stood for
more than 80 years. 1t has been cut for
soiling; it has been cut for hay it has
been pasturaged; it was first sown with
red clover and timothy, which it long
ago run out, and although the white clover
and blue grass venture their presence to
a limited extent among it, the orchard
grass retains its supremacy, and, breast
high at maturity, lords it over the dim.
inutive trespassers in a bounteous crop,
while its humber attendants, good in
their place, modestly fill up a great
nutritious underground at the bottom.
1t has been objected to the orchard
grass that it grows too much in stools, or
tussocks. If it has any faults, that is one
of them; but full seeding will measurably
remedy that. 1t does not stool or spread
so universally as the blue grass, or per.
haps some others, but it forms strong,
compact root, and that root it holds firm.
ly, enduringly, and if given a moderate
amount of tertilizing matter, its roots fill
the surface and there they stay, yielding
to nothing but the utmost abuse byItread-
ing in Spring by heavy cattle-which
should never be allowed on any grasses
or the pillow itself,
The seed of the orchard grass, from its
absence of general cultivation, is not
found in abundant quantity at the seed
stores of our towns and cities, and the
price may be dear compared with timothy
and the clovers; yet not so dear as to
prevent the farmer from obtaining it in
sufficient quantity for trial, and from q
small area Of ground to supply his own
wants in seed hereafter. 1t yields boun.
tifully, and when ripe, which is easily
known by its assuming yellowish color,
it may be cut and bound in sheaves like
oats, or moved, cured and threshed out,
like timothy. The entire process Of its
cultivation is as simple as any Of our or
binary farm grasses.