8 FORAGE CEOPS FOR THE SAND-HILL SECTION OF NEBRASKA. 



or of horses and mules. If he has only a limited area, like 640 acres, 

 and is in reach of a shippinc; point, he had better substitute for the 

 beef cattle a dairy herd. 



IMPORTANCE OF A LEGUMINOUS FORAGE CROP. 



None of these sandy lands should be farmed more than two years 

 successivel}^ to corn or any other intertilled crop. The stockman must 

 have grain or some substitute for it to feed his animals during the 

 winter in order to maintain their strength and enable the females 

 to enter the sjjring season strong enough to produce and care for their 

 young. A feed is desirable which will also prevent the usual shrink- 

 age during the Avinter of the young cattle. To supplement the native 

 hay with grain shipped in and hauled long distances over sandy roads 

 would be too expensive. This feed must be grown on the ranch. 

 A^Hiat crop will fill this need? Obviously it must be one that can 

 be grown without clean cultivation and which in itself does not 

 markedly deplete the fertility of the soil. For such a crop we must 

 look among the legumes. 



COMPARISON OF BROADCASTED AND CULTIVATED CROPS. 



Continuous clean cultivation of a sandy soil destroys the vegetable 

 matter remaining in it from the grass roots, and in a short time, 

 generally three years, the soil begins to blow. Soon, if such methods 

 are continued, a large percentage of the crop will be cut off by the 

 drifting sand each year just as it is coming up, and when the field 

 is abandoned the wind will continue to remove the soil until the sur- 

 face is lowered to a depth of 6 or 7 feet and the land becomes prac- 

 tically worthless, even for gi*azing purposes. Such experiences as 

 these have induced the sand-hill farmer to look about for some crop 

 which does not need cultivation, and preferably a perennial one for 

 which the soil does not need to be plowed each year. 



PRESENT CROPPING SYSTEM. 



Most farmers are depending at the present time on growing corn 

 and lye with a small acreage of oats and supplementing this with 

 large quantities of native hay. This hay, if cut at the right time and 

 cured properly, would be fairly efficient in carrying stock through 

 the winter, but most of it is put up under contract and little care is 

 used either to cut it at the proper time or to get it baled or stacked 

 while it is bright and sweet smelling. On account of the scarcity of 

 grain, this indifferently handled hay becomes the principal reliance 

 of the ranchman for his cattle during the winter. Feeding it as the 

 sole diet usually results in the cattle going on the grass in a very 

 weak condition in the spring. If there are many bad storms, great 



[Cir. 80] 



