Evening star., 1936-03-05
SPECIES Of BENT
SEEMS IMMUNE
Errant Strain on No. ID at
Congressional Gives
Bugs a Battle.
RY w. r. McCALLUM.

NJ AYBE YOU didn't know and
M probably you didn't much
care about the whole thing
4 a until hot August day when
suddenly you noticed that the putting
greens of your favorite golf pasture
we're about to become the drab color
of a stretch of Potomac River mud
fats. But a situation like that is
rank poison to greenkeeper.
His main job is to keep your golf
course green and pretty, and If he fails
his Job goes "f1ooey" and he feels
pretty disgruntled all around. His
public enemy No. l is a grass disease
called brown patch" and to date he
has learned to control it pretty we'll
with various chemical solutions that
are dumped on the grass like anti
toxin into footed urchin who
runs a nail into his heel. But the
main goal of all greenkeepers and the
Greens Section of the United States
Golf Association is putting green
grass that will meet all requirements
of smoothness and texture and at the
same time will be so highly resistant
to brown patch that those funny little
spots that appear after hot night in
Midsummer won't feaze the grass.
Hines Makes Discovery.
ID EUB HINES, the greenkeeper at
N Confessional and Manor thinks
he may have found that species of
grass. 1t is an unclaSsified strain OF
bent. and Reub doesn't know how 1t
got into his bent strains. But he does
know that over on the fourteenth
green of the Congressional Country
Club, which brown patch attacks every
wear. there is a big area of grass That
never is touched by the disease. or
course he sprays all the greens with
ammonium sulphate and other cheml-
Gals. but those things Just keep brown
patch down. They don't eradicate it
altogether. That patch of grass on
tie fourteenth, however, isn't touched
bv brown patch. no matter how humid
the night or how sultry the weather
becomes. II don't make any claim
that this grass is the stuff We have
been looking for Hines says. Il
0OIl L hdIIG W SOU OaV VA n 44iIlS oAAN
claim that the cure has been found
because I can't believe it yet. But l
do think that this grass is good and
that it may be what we want. 1t
seems to stand up against brown
patch like no other grass we have, and
I'm going to keep working on it, and
if it is the stuff We will propagate it
and spread it around on all the greens.
But. understand, I don't want to claim
we have found the Utopia. 1t does
look good, however"
May Have Found Cure.
IF REUB HINES has found grass
that is completely resistant to
brown patch the golf world will beat
a path to his door. For brown patch,
over the last IS years, has been the
toughest problem the greenkeepers
have had to lick, even since the morn
ing that the green's force at Columbia
woke up one hot day last July and
found that their greens, over which
they had worked SO long in preparation
for the national open championship,
had gone out from under them. Along
came the Department of Agriculture,
with all its tremendous facilities, to
find chemical means of neutralizing
brown patch. And over on the old
fourth green at Washington the late
Prof. Piper found strain of grass that
resisted the inroads of the disease.
From mere slip of grass washington
bent spread over the world and today
1t is known wherever golf is played.
But the cure is yet to be found. Per-
haps Hines has 1t in the grass at
Congressional