The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1897-12-02
CULTIVATE GRASS
A Much Neglected Fea.
ture of Agriculture.
state OF Connecticut Experiment.
ing in Making Good
Lawns.

nc Oldle VI CONNECTICUT taxes great
pride in its Agriculture Station. It |
was the pioneer institution of its kind |
in the United States. Some of the !!
experiments made there have attracted |
widespread attention, not the least of
which are those in grass growing or
gardening" More than 1,5OO varieties
OF grass are cultivated at the station
under the direction of Mr.. James B.
Olcott. The grass garden has been in
existence nine years. In some years
as many as 10000 grass shoots have
been set out. These include varieties
from all parts of the world.
Senator Platt and Senator Hawley
(oWner OF the Hartford Courant) have
succeeded in getting Congress to pass
an appropriation for a similar pro-
Ject in Washington. The Courant re-
Gently published interesting articles
on the grass gardening experiments
in Connecticut. An authority on the
subject is quoted by the Courant as
follows:
'This Connecticut garden shows
many grasses that everybody wants
and in form that nobody ever saw in
a botanic garden; namely in the every
day form of turf. Except as to the
production and care of permanent turf,
so faithfully shown here, all the prob
lens of grass culture have been illus
trated in gardens fifty and one hun
dred years ago; and the investigations
and their results treated exhaustive
| ly in books.
Much of recent botanic study has
been given to wild REPRESENTATIVES of
| countries opened to settlement by
| modern travel, while the tried and
proven grasses of the oldest civiliza-
tions have been neglected, or maltreat-
ed and falsified by seed growers and
trading botanists. In the grass inves-
LEGATIONS carried on here the reverse
of this is apparently true. Here the
old, long-established and thoroughly
proven grasses make the most show.
"Mr. Olcott has grasses from almost
every country in the world, you might
say, and every one pure culture, has
| stood the test tube of climate and eX-
| perience."
Mr.. Olcott himself says of his gar
den: Every method of culture in
/
and longest settled principles of gar
dening and agriculture. The roots of a
pasture grass found making the best
turf, are parted, planted and forced
to repeat itself in tough turf or sward
4 again. Common labor, always more OF
less familiar with this process, soon
with practice, becomes expert.
MANY of these old grazing grasses
have been proven to bring seeds truly
each after it's kind, and turf, such as
everybody wants, has been grown
manufactured from these seeds-ant
from roots also, by machinery anG
without grazing animals, in close like
ness of the best pasture products. 81
perfect and exact is the reproduction
of these grasses by their roots, tina
1000 or 10000 turf-gardens in precis'
duplicate of each other, could be plant
ed from the stocks here within a year
if this should be desirable and thu
means were afforded. And this will
. varieties in procedures which ar
practically cosmopolitan in their Origin
as we'll as in their adoption to tn
needs of agriculture and gardening
Nothing like this can be said of an,
one or all the other grass gardens Q
the world combined. None of ther
are ready to do this work even if tn
money were forthcoming to do it with
J Give minutes study of turf-plant
ing by an expert machine Tobacco
planter would satisfy him that the onl
l trouble in planting grass roots in acre
daily, by machinery, is to get the rigf
stock in sufficient quantity. In thi
garden there is stock enough for on
hundred acres Botanic gardens hay
never even tried to meet this univers;
demand. Hundreds of people ask N
where the practical application of tn
garden lies.
do you see that grass road? Goo
|. enough turf, isn't it? You can't mate
it in these states. 1t is composed
the plants whose seeds came from tt
old countries in the hair and stockin,
of our ancestors That is the turf of Of
daddies. Had we minded our eyes
had we continually asked the caref
farmer to grow and keep that sort of
sward for us-instead of climbing son
other wayne might have had it {
over the country any time these 2
years.
THAT grass road has received
manure OF seeds for 35 or 40 years. N
a plant remains in it which my faith
Willingly sowed, but he kept shee
his water-meadows were covered wi
fine red-top and white clover, and /
manure was full of their seeds.
"By close machine grazing and wee
!. ing-doing the work of flock of she
we have developed the Donna
grasses of the soil-the very han
= writing of our grazing ancestors.
> '.That road had three sorts of chic
y weeds in it. You don't see them,
there is enough there yet to destr
all the grasses and clovers, if it W
managed as your lawns and parks a
managed, or your pastures-whe
everything is permitted to go to Sc
that cattle won't eat.
Fright alongside. you see the tu