The Monticellonian., 1894-10-19

But with Bermuda there is no trouble in this regard. For from the time it gets high enough to now until killing frost 1t makes the finest of hay, no matter when cut; thus enabling one to choose such times for cutting as the state of the weather and other circum- stances render most favorable. And there is no grass more readi- l ly cured than it is.
 We hear and read good deal of Winter Pasturage. A strictly winter pasture, however, if not exactly myth, has never in my experience or observation mate rialized sufficiently to be much more than delusion.
 The bite that any of the so-call- ed winter grasses or even Rye or Barley affords milch COW Ill De- cember or January of an average season does not compensate for her exposure to the bleak wind or chilly rain (to say nothing of snow and slceD while she is foraging for it. The best that can be claim ed for any of them is that they afford grazing for some time after other herbage is sere from frost and they put fourth very early in Spring. But in neither of these respects do any of them excel Bermuda to any important ex- teut.
 Any grass to at all answer the purpose of what is called winter pasturage must be on very rich or highly fertilized land and be left ungrazed and unmown from March until November. And up on that sort of land and with that sort of treatment Bermuda will afford grazing as near Christmas as Red Top, Orchard or Blue grass will. For though Bermuda will at that season be seered on top by frost, underneath it will remain green and succulent as late as anything and until the rigor of the season requires that domestic animals should be under shelter.
 And as early in February or March as a Rye or Barley field furnishes grazing will also a Der muda pasture. while the latter possesses the advantage that no damage will be done it from trampling as of course will be done to land that was plowed the previous autumn as Bye and Bar ley felds have to be.
 There are two obstacles to sat isfactory success, at the South, with any of the perennial grasses that are the reliance of pastures and mead 1ws in the Southern and and Middle States: First, That they are soon overshadowed and crowded out by brars, bushes and broom-sage and second that when a meadow of them becomes ex- hausted of it's fertility as it nee essarily will from repeated now ings, it cannot be renovated ex- cept by the wasteful and other wise objectionable method of top dressing
 Now neither of these troubles is encountered to any serious ex- tent with a Bermuda meadow. For though on land that is never grazed, mown or plowed Bermuda will be shaded out by indiginous growths in few years, it needs only grazing, moving or blowing to enable it to soon subdue all ri vals.
 And when Bermuda meadow needs refsrtilizing so far from it's sod being destroyed by blowing in of manure, it will (except for a very short time) be all the better for such blowing.
 None of our crops withstand heat and drouth like Bermuda grass and Bermuda meadow will yield repeated cuttings of hay both before and after the period of the drouth which nearly every year cuts short the corn crop of the South.
 Grain crops must beplanted or sown just at the right time and this every year-whereas Bermu-