PASTURES IN NEW YORK 



F. E. Bo ^' STEEL, Ashville, Chautauqua Co., N. Y. 

 Farmers' Institute Lecturer 

 The supremacy of New York as a hay-pro- 



ducing state has never been questioned, and 

 it follows, as a natural corrollai'%% that her 

 pasture lands should be noteworthy in extent 

 and quality. The first part of this proposi- 

 tion is easily demonstrated ; the latter is much 

 more difficult of proof and its discussion will 

 be the principal purpose of this paper. 



The total improved land in the farms of 

 this state, according to the Thirteenth Census, 

 was 14,844,039 acres; the combined acreage 

 of all crops reported was 8,387,731; leaving a difference 

 of (5,456,308 acres, or 43.5 per cent, in pastures, orchards, and 

 vinevards. Makino; a generous allowance for the two last men- 

 tioned would still leave the acreage of pasture lands at least equal 

 to its nearest competitor, the hay and forage crops occupying 

 5,043,373 acres. In addition there is a vast but undetermined 

 acreage of unimproved land in the state whose chief economic 

 use is as pasturage. 



QUALITY OF PASTURE 



As ]^ew York lands in general are naturally adapted to the 

 production of hay of good quality, yield, and permanence, the 

 same superiority should hold for pasturage, which it surely did 

 within the memory of many of our present-day dairjTiien and 

 stockmen. But few, if any, will deny that present-day pastures 

 are not to be compared with those of three or four decades ago, 

 when the purchase of mill by-products was practically unknown 

 and when the dairy herds maintained a satisfactory milk flow 

 from early spring till late fall on pasturage alone. 



It is a sad but unassailable fact that many of these splendid 

 natural pastures have been so abused through the practices of 

 pioneer agriculture that their economic use is limited tO' from 

 four to six weeks, during the rest of the season furnishing little 



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