Bermuda grass

“ Bermuda grass is generally condemned because of getting in places where it is not desirable and of being almost impossible of eradication therefrom. Still, Bermuda grass will make good pasturage on land which is too alkaline to make other crops, and therefore is highly esteemed by some owners of waste lands in the San Joaquin valley. It is good pasturage and is most easily propagated by cutting the roots up into short pieces by use of the hay-cutter, nearly all the pieces retaining an eye which will make a new plant. It is easy to get in and hard to get out. ”

“ We desire a grass to be used on levees, to keep from washing. Bermuda or Johnson gross are dangerous to farming lands. What we desire is a grass that will grow in good dirt with no water to support it during most of the year, except the annual rainfall of Fresno county. Of course, this grass will also have to endure a great deal of water during the flooded season of the year. We have heard that the Italian rye grass would be suitable.
The rye grasses do not have running roots; therefore are not calculated to bind soil particles together as Bermuda grass does. ”

“ Bermuda grass will not make summer growth enough on dry pasture land to make it worth having. It will not make much growth in the rainy season because of frost, and if it has possession of the ground it will not allow either burr clover or alfilaria to make such winter growth as they will on clean land. ”

“ It is probable, however, that you can reduce the Bermuda so that other cultivated crops can be continuously grown. Common experience is that Bermuda will hold on unless you have hard freezing of the ground to a considerable depth, as they have in the northern States. The best use that you can make of land infested with Bermuda is to get as good a stand as you can of alfalfa and let the alfalfa fight for itself. The combination of alfalfa and Bermuda grass makes very good hay or pasturage. We should, however, sow the alfalfa alone and not handicap it by sowing with barley. ”

“ The corn crop is light per acre to one used to the West; oats, however, yield well when well cultivated, and are off the ground in May, the same ground making also a good hay crop the same year. Bermuda grass makes an inexhaustible supply of pasture for all stock, except three winter months when green rye, barley or oats will take its place. Italian rye grass I have found grows luxuriantly during winter and spring, and it makes more milk than almost any herb. Red top grass also succeeds well. ”

“ There are singularly few pests or blights in the garden itself. Bermuda or devil grass is one of our Western specialties, though it may have invaded the East, too, since we left. It is an unusually husky plant, rooting itself afresh at every joint with new vigor, and quite choking out the aristocratic blue grass with which we started our lawn. ”

“ If sods cannot be obtained, the ground may be planted with Bermuda grass. Plant small pieces of the grass a foot apart and water them if the weather is dry, and they will grow rapidly. Hedges should be cleared up and put in good shape. All planting of trees and shrubs should be finished this month. All pruning of trees must be done early in the month. Young roses cannot be set too early in February. They thrive best when planted in fall. Roll the drives and repair them when necessary. The lawn will now require constant care, and the mower should be used before the grass becomes 1-1/2 in. ”

“ Fields once in cultivation, but now abandoned to sedge and Bermuda grass, cultivated fields, where giant cockle burrs wrestle with morning glory vines for the possession of the soil, tracts of palmlike palmeto and marshy jungles of willows, pampass grass and briars afford attractive feeding grounds by day and safe roosting places by night to myriads of winter visitants. In such places are found abundant supplies of the insects, berries and seeds which this humid, semi-tropical climate produces in great profusion. ”

“ The native indigenous grasses of the Island, although suitable for grazing purposes, are rather tough and hard and will not fatten livestock as will the two grasses referred to above.
Probably the best permanent pasture in Cuba is secured by planting Bermuda. This grass has been imported from the United States and installed in Cuba with splendid results. On rich soils the growth is rank, and the sod firm, with a larger yield probably on account of the more favorable climate. Stock of all kind, especially horses and hogs, are very fond of the Bermuda grass, preferring it in fact to any other. ”

“ Each struggles for possession and does the best it can, and to some extent one supplements the other, with the result that at all times from spring to fall there is a close mat of living green which delights the eye and is pleasant to the feet that tread upon it. In soft ground, with plenty of room, a bit of quick or quack grass, or Bermuda, will extend in a year three to five feet or more in one direction. ”

“ Not far from the house two giant palms—honored patriarchs of the valley—reared their trembling feathers to the sky. Like grim sentinels, true to a trust, they guarded in dumb eloquence the story of the past.
Before reaching the house the drive divided, encircling within the arms of its curve a soft oval cushion of Bermuda [Pg 39] grass that in December is brown and unpromising, but in the spring grows green remaining so through the long summer, making no imperative demand for water, and being at all seasons as soft to the feet as the most luxurious rug. It is the grass created for the invalid. ”

“ Unfortunately, no experiments have been conducted to compare these two grasses as to ease of establishment and as to carrying capacity. Carpet grass produces abundant good seed, and therefore spreads much more rapidly than Bermuda, which rarely produces seed in humid regions. ”

“ The most common grasses are several varieties of paspalum or carpet grass, switch grass, wire grass, little blue maiden cane and Bermuda. Crab and Natal grass are volunteers which follow crops on sandy soils. Both Guinea and Para grasses thrive in South Florida, where less liable to injury by frost. Fort Thompson grass, which resembles giant Bermuda, with larger joint, stem and leaf, is a native of Florida, which will some day be recognized as one of their very best pasture grasses. ”

“ During the growing season, from spring till late fall, these grasses furnish fair pasturage, but through the rest of the year they merely enable animals to exist. What can be done towards converting these poor native pastures into good permanent pastures? There are three possibilities in the light of our present knowledge. On better soils good Bermuda pastures can be developed, or where the lands are moist, as on most flatwood areas, carpet grass may be used. On the drier and poorer soils, Natal grass is the only one that has given much success. ”

“ At the present time we have under trial five creeping pasture grasses, more or less like Bermuda in a general way. You are, of course, aware that a pasture grass to be valuable should be able to spread naturally and must be able to hold the ground. ”

“ I have never seen a sea of deeper sapphire-blue, and this is reflected not from above, but from below, and is due to the bed of white coral sand beneath the water. On the dullest day the water keeps its deep-blue tint. When the oleanders are in bloom, the milk-white houses, peeping out from this sheet of rose-pink, with the deep indigo of the sea, and the sombre green of the cedars, make one of the most enchanting pictures that it is possible to imagine.
Bermuda has distinctly an island climate, which is perhaps fortunate, as the inhabitants are entirely dependent on rain-water. ”

“ All about the island one sees great white scars on the hill-slopes. These are dished spaces where the soil has been scraped off and the coral exposed and glazed with hard whitewash. Some of these are a quarter-acre in size. They catch and carry the rainfall to reservoirs; for the wells are few and poor, and there are no natural springs and no brooks.
They say that the Bermuda climate is mild and equable, with never any snow or ice, and that one may be very comfortable in spring clothing the year round, there. ”

“ But the dull cedar is everywhere, and is the prevailing foliage. One does not appreciate how dull it is until the varnished, bright green attire of the infrequent lemon tree pleasantly intrudes its contrast. In one thing Bermuda is eminently tropical—was in May, at least—the unbrilliant, slightly faded, unrejoicing look of the landscape. For forests arrayed in a blemishless magnificence of glowing green foliage that seems to exult in its own existence and can move the beholder to an enthusiasm that will make him either shout or cry, one must go to countries that have malignant winters. ”

“ George’s at noon, or any other spot where the sun-beams could reach him, that did not consider the heat as anything rather than temperate.
But whatever may be thought of the climate, there can, I think, be but one opinion as to the soil. It is generally admitted that there is no more unproductive spot of earth upon the face of the deep than Bermuda. The only animals which appear to thrive are the goat and the duck; the cedar and a few calabash-trees are the only wood, and, except the most common kinds of vegetables, such as cabbages, onions, and sweet potatoes ”

“ Low as they are, the shores of Bermuda are nevertheless extremely beautiful. They are covered with cedar, a tree which here, at least, seldom exceeds the height of twenty feet, and from which, before the sun has risen and after he has set, the land breeze comes loaded with the most delicious perfume. ”

“ Bermuda has a wind velocity much greater than [258] that of any of the resorts named in the tables, and its relative humidity is about that of Florida.
The charm of Bermuda is that the flowers bloom, vegetables grow, and the trees remain green the year round. Even though frequent short showers may fall each twenty-four hours more than half of the days during winter, the soil is so porous that there is little or no mud, and life is largely one of the open air, with a winter temperature that conduces to activity ”

“ Two sorts of fine Agrostis are honestly sold under the trade name of Rhode Island bent, and, as trade goes, we may consider ourselves lucky if we get even the coarser one. The finest—a little the finest—Agrostis canina—is a rather rare, valuable, and elegant grass, which should be much better known by grass farmers, as well as gardeners, than it is. These are both good lawn as well as pasture grasses.” The grass usually sold as Rhode Island bent is Agrostis vulgaris, the smaller red top of the East and of Europe. ”

“ Here the longer streets flank the sea and the shorter run at right angles up the inner slopes. Both are bright red lines worn in the vegetation between the houses. The ribbons of green are the American or Bahama grass; fine, silky, and creeping along the ground, it is used to stuff mattresses, and it forms a good substitute for turf. When first imported it was neglected, cut away, and nearly killed out; now it is encouraged, because its velvety plots relieve the glaring red surface, it keeps off the 'bush,' and it clears the surface of all other vegetation. ”

“ Not even man succeeds in introducing variety into this eternal sameness, for the fields which he tills in the midst of the grass-land seem from a distance so like their surroundings that one can scarce distinguish grain from grass. Even the round huts made of slender stakes, with conical roofs thatched with [Pg 177] steppe-grass, are, in the dry season at least, so closely congruent with the surrounding flats that one must come very near before one sees that they are there. Only the seasons can change the sameness of the picture, and even they do not remove much of its monotony. ”

“ It writhed and spumed upward in great clumps, culminating in enormous, overhanging caps inevitably suggesting the mushroomcloud of the bomb.
The grass had always been cautious of the sea; now the dazzling growth plunged into the saltwater with frenzy, leaping and building upon itself. Great masses of vegetation, piers, causeways, isthmuses of grass offered the illusion of growing out of the ocean bottom, linking themselves to the land, extending too late the lost coast far out into the Pacific. ”

“ The draught caused by flowing water keeps the clearing clean of sand-flies, the pest of the inner settlements, and European employés will find the place healthy. The up-sloping ground behind the house could be laid out in a pottage-garden; and, as Bahama-grass grows fast, there will be no difficulty about disposing of the under-growth. ”

“ Everywhere the soil looked parched and burnt, the scanty yellow grass crisped under the foot, and even the hardest plants were destroyed by want of moisture. I think it necessary to mention this fact, because to the rapid evaporation in such an elevated region, nearly five thousand feet above the sea, almost wholly unprotected by timber, should be attributed much of the sterile appearance of the country, in the destruction of vegetation, and the numerous saline efflorescences which covered the ground. ”

“ Even in spring-time it never shows more color than a tint of palest green, and the landscape which is dependent upon this grass for color is never more than “a gray and melancholy waste.” Unlike the soft, juicy, and succulent grasses of the well-watered portions of the United States, the tiny leaves of the grama grass are hard, stiff, and dry. I have often noticed that in grazing neither cattle nor horses are able to bite off the blades, but instead each leaf is pulled out of the tuft, seemingly by its root. ”