Hugh Bailey, left, shows S.R. Palmer of Rockwell how tall and luxuriantly the new Ky-31 fescue grass will grow in Rowan County in this photograph that appeared in the Dec. 9, 1948, edition of the Salisbury Post. Hugh and Ira Bailey, farming brothers in Woodleaf, had decided to seed their new pastures with a combination of the new Ky-31 fescue and ladino clover, forsaking the orchard grass, Kentucky blue, Bermuda and variety of other grasses and clover that had been traditional for Rowan pastures. Palmer was one of about 40 farmers who toured the Bailey’s Ky-31 acreage, “to see what the ‘wonder’ grass had done in the two years since the Baileys had first planted it, the newspaper said. The report also called the Baileys two of Rowan County’s “shrewdest and most progressive farmers.”