Green Grass

Nebuchadnezzar lay in the sun and ate grass. And good grass it was in days when few footsteps crushed its tender shoots and no motor exhaust laid a blight upon it. Not only its hardships but also its responsibilities have so increased that science must come to its aid. Last fortnight the University of Illinois announced that its scientists would work--with Erlenmeyer flask and petrie dish--on the problem of maintaining a satisfactory turf on football fields. The athletic association will make a 90-square checkerboard out of the gridiron. Running in crosswise strips will be nine different grasses, old, new, domestic, foreign. Ten strips, each treated with a different amount and combination of fertilizer, will run lengthwise, cutting the grass at right angles, forming 90 differently treated little experimental football fields.

In the fall the team will practice on the 90 pigmy gridirons, giving them all the same rough treatment. At the end of the season, the grass which best holds up its head will be the chosen turf for the future football teams of Illinois.

For airports, too, grass is being scientifically studied. Messrs. Stump and Walter, turf technicians and theorists, having had long experience with golf courses and polo fields, now offer a formula giving the best combination of grass seeds to produce a proper landing field.

Last fortnight two plant explorers, Robert Louis Piemeisel and L. W. Kephart of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, who had been nine months questing for grass in Africa, returned with 160 varieties. They had suffered from extreme cold in the highlands of Kenya and Tanganyika, had gathered grass seeds within sight of glaciers 200 feet thick, had faced down an elephant in a bamboo jungle, had brought back with them samples of 75% of all the forage grasses of the region. Their hope is to lengthen the season of green pastures throughout the land, thereby reducing the cost of livestock in the U. S.