Bermuda Grass.

What is the value of Bermuda grass as a forage crop for cattle, more particularly dairy cows?

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.

Salt Grass and Alfalfa.

I have some land in Sutter county and it has some of this salt grass in spots.  I am about to take a twenty-acre piece and put in alfalfa, but some old-timers tell me that the salt grass on it is bad stuff to handle.

Your trouble will probably be not so much the salt grass, but the alkali in the soil which the salt grass can tolerate and which other plants cannot stand.  You cannot then substitute alfalfa for salt grass without getting the alkali out of the soil, and you cannot do this without having sufficient drainage so that the rainfall may wash the alkali out from the soil and carry it away in the drainage water.  You probably cannot get a satisfactory growth of alfalfa on the spots where the salt grass has established itself, although the land round about may be very satisfactory to alfalfa.

Giant Spurry.

I would like information about spurry.  How much frost will it stand? 
What is time for sowing?  Its value as crop to plow under?

From a California point of view, spurry is a winter-growing weed which has been approved by orchardists in Sonoma county because it yields a considerable amount of vegetation for turning under with the spring plowing of the orchard.  For this purpose it should be sown at the beginning of the rainy season.  Its value as a crop to turn under depends upon the amount of growth you can get.  It is not a legume and, therefore, does not have the value of the nitrogen-gathering plant.  Still, it yields humus and, therefore, is valuable for winter growing as ordinary weeds, grasses, grains, etc., are.

Light Soil and Scant Moisture.

Advise me as to plowing under a crop of last year’s weeds where I intend to plant beans, corn, etc.  The soil is “slickens,” on the Yuba river, and the weeds grew up last year in a crop of volunteer barley, which was hogged off.  I expect to plow five inches deep, and calculate that the barley straw and weeds will contribute to the supply of humus, which is always deficient in most of our soils.  I expect to try to grow beans without irrigation, and wonder if the trash would hold the soil too open so as to dry them out.

Considering the character of the soil which you describe and the shallow plowing you intend we should certainly burn off all the trash upon the land.  With deep plowing early in the season this coarse stuff could be covered in to advantage, but it would be dangerous to do it in the spring.  Clean land and thorough cultivation to save moisture enough for summer’s growth is the only rational spring treatment.