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Bluegrass
Nature Bulletin No. 298-A March 16, 1968
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Richard B. Ogilvie, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation
BLUEGRASS
It is a remarkable fact that, of all our cultivated food plants and all our
domesticated animals, only the dog was found in both the eastern and
western hemispheres before Europeans reached the Americas. From the
Old World, too, we have obtained all of the grasses and legumes most
important as plants for pasture, forage crops, erosion control and turf--
turf for lawns around our homes and public buildings, or in parks, golf
courses, airports and cemeteries. The most commonly known and
widely-used of all such grasses, especially in the north-central and
northeastern states, is Kentucky Bluegrass.
To be sure, there were hundreds of kinds of native grasses in North
America. In the prairies and oak openings of the Middle West there
were the big bluest, the little bluest and many other species. The Great
Plains were carpeted with buffalo grass, the grama grasses and such
low-growing but highly nutritious plants. Along the Atlantic coast,
however, although there were natural openings in the stream valleys and
clearings where the Indians had burned the woodlands for corn patches
or for easier hunting, the first colonists found amazingly few forage
plants suitable for the livestock they brought with them. Wild rye and a
few other native grasses grew high and thick in most places, and cattle
ate them greedily in summer, but they had little food value as hay to
carry livestock through a winter. Although the coarse reeds and sedges
abundant in fresh-water and salt marshes, were also used Sometimes
cattle were slaughtered to keep them from starvation.
Such animals were fed on shipboard, of course, and their manure and
any surplus forage were unloaded with them. As a result, English grass -
- a term including both bluegrass and white clover -- soon began to
appear and spread; also other European grasses, and weeds. The
European plant we call timothy was widely grown for hay in England,
and its seeds were carried to several other colonies by one Timothy
Hanson. Other colonists imported seeds of grasses, white and red
clover.
In the Ohio valley there were extensive natural openings in the forests
and much richer pastures of native grasses than along the Atlantic
seaboard. Before the Revolution, these attracted settlers. When "Mad
Anthony" crossed the Alleghenies to defeat the British and Indians at
Fallen Timbers in 1794, his mounted troops brought forage with them.
Bluegrass soon flourished where they camped in the Scioto valley of
Ohio. Subsequently, two brothers named Rennick -- were apparently
responsible for the introduction of this plant into what is known as the
Bluegrass State. Its bluegrass region, from which comes nearly all of
our commercial bluegrass seed, is a well-watered gently-rolling plateau
with fertile limestone soils. There are similar regions in Virginia and
Tennessee but in Kentucky the landowners have adhered to a pasture-
type agriculture, never allowing much more than a small portion of the
land to be cultivated for corn, tobacco or other crops.
Kentucky bluegrass requires plenty of rainfall, a rich well-drained soil,
and does best on limestone soil or where nitrogen, limestone and
phosphorus fertilizers are added as needed. Canada Bluegrass, which
cannot otherwise compete with it, does well on poor soils and
withstands drought or other unfavorable conditions. It can be
distinguished by its very flat stems which cannot readily be rolled
between the fingers. Of the 200 or more species of bluegrass, seven are
well known and have an important place in agriculture but "Kentucky
Blue" is king of them all.
There are about 2 million seeds per pound and almost as many colonels.
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