The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-09-26
BLUEGRASS SEED.
Tho Seed or the Grass which Makes the
Ftnest Pasture on thorootsteeL

Tho Seed or the Grass which Makes the
Ftnest Pasture on thoYeotstoeL
"Yes, yea remarked the Kentuokian In Now
York buying goods because the Merchants As
ISOLATION had made It worth his while to come
that way, Kentucky Is the only really truly
bluegrass State. and while sho raises tho
grass, 1t is no small thing when you come to
talk about the;crop Of grass seed. The era Of pros.
perity is with It this year, and the crop will
amount to about 4oo, 900 bushels. though some
years II isn't more than half that The best of
this, called fancy Is worth 70 cents In the ware
house, or 80 cents in New York, and the sec
ond grade, known as extra Clean Ia worth
IS cents in the warehouse. As tho most Of II
Is high grade, you will zee that the bluegrass
seed produces money. as well as blue grass. At
the came time tho industry is not what you
might think 1t was, and there arc only three
seed cleaners in the whole State, one at Win
chester, and the other two at Paris. st. Louis
and Kansas City have a couple, I think, but
their output is very small, as Kentucky raises
the great bulk Of the seed sold. Ohio. Mis-
souri,. and Illinois are the only other States
which raise more than they use, and their out
put is hardly worth counting.
"As you know. blue grass is never moved, 50
that there is no such thing as a bluegrass
meadow. 1t Is a pasture instead, and the grass
is grazed entirely. 1t depends, then, upon how
much a pasture Is grazed as to how much of q
yield Of seed may be had from 1t, but from eight
to fifteen bushels to the acre is the way 1t runs.
The harvest time is from the sth to the 18th Of
June. and the harvesting is dono with a strip
per- q machine which is drawn through the
grass and strips off the heads Of 1t, catching It
up as it goes along. This Is the seed in the
rough and is worth to the farmer 35 cents q
bushel. 1t is taken then and dried until about
the first Of August, when 1t is cleaned and put
in sacks for shipment. 1t used TO be that deal.
ers wnited until the next spring to buy. but in
recent years the sooner they can get 1t the bet.
ter they are satisfied. These are export dealers
exclusively, and all of the first crop in goes
abroad.
bluegrass seed is infinitely fine, and so far
there has never been n real effective cleaner
made for 1t, each man getting up the best thing
he can. AS there are only five or six cleaners
in the country, the demand for cleaners is hard.
ly enough to develop the talent OF the inventors
along that line. 1t is very difficult TO clean the
seed. because it is SO light and fine. 1t is most
ly done by suction and will continue as 1t now
is, I suppose, until the seed industry becomes
great enough TO have something better. Near.
ly every state in the | Mon buys bluegrass
seed. and, the grass will grow in every State.
for, lawns in the East and Northwest. The
soil for bluecsrass pasture must be clayey
-N@ NAea ~ hAHAN 40 ~ N'A iolu AZ III
the ground when the stock pulls on it. 1t
will grow as well on loose and loamy soil, but it
must be for lawns there, for the stock would
have 1t pulled ont in short order. While the
famous bluegrass region is distinctly lime
stone, that kind Of soil is not necessary to pro-
duce good blue grass, as the pastures in many
States will show. However, when you want
the best, there is only one place on earth to find
It, and the KentuCkian blusbed.
AS | said, the seeds are shipped to nearly
every State in the United States. and a third
of the crop goes to European countries. princi.
Tally France. Germany and Great Britain, but
whether they use II for pasture or lawns l don't
know. Speaking OF this foreign shipment.
wo can calculate that two hundred thousand
acres OF Europe are in blue grass every year.
At least, II takes half a bushel 10 the acre and
Europe takes, say; "A hundred thousand bushels
OF seed q year. But Canada doesn't do any.
thing like that. On the contrary, Canada
ships a lot of coarse seed down to this country
To rascally dealers here, who mix II with our
good Kentucky seed and sell the adulteration
as genuine Kentucky blue grass. We got some
tariff 10 knock that business in the head, II pos.
YES" concluded the narrator, paris and
Winchester ship more blue grass seed than ali
the world combined, and last fall, you remem-
kinloy a hnshcl OF bluegrass seed to put the
velvet on his lawn at Canton. no got 1t from
Col. Gay OF Winchester, II sound. money Demo.
crat and one of the half dozen bluegrass seed
cleaners in the entire terrestrial limits