266 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



twelve to fourteen inches high and should not be pastured off too 

 closely. Leaves are as essential to the health of a plant as lungs are to 

 an animal; and hence, there should always be present an amount 

 sufficient to produce a maximum growth. Clover may be turned onto 

 when five to eight inches high and should for the same reasons not be 

 fed too closely. 



The supplements to forages should depend upon the nature of the 

 forage plant. Where the forage crop is a legume, such as alfalfa, clover, 

 cowpeas or soybeans, corn will make a very satisfactory supplement ; but 

 where the forage consists of corn, sorghum or rye, better results will be 

 ■obtained if the grain supplement is made about six parts corn and one 

 part oilmeal. 



In the light of the data that has already been worked out, it be- 

 hooves us as meat producers to alter our methods and introduce more 

 ■economical systems of pork production. The production of cheap pork 

 with high-priced grains is not impossible if used in connection with 

 succulent forage crops. 



SOME COMMON BIRDS ON THE FARM. 



■(By T. Gilbert Pearson, reprinted from supplement to September Bulletin, 1909, North 



Carolina Department of Agriculture.) 



North Carolina is rich in wild bird life, both in the nmnber of species 

 which is found within her borders and the comitless numbers of individ- 

 uals with which some of the species are represented. The farm lands 

 are supplied the year round with numbers of birds of great value to 

 the agricultural interests. In winter the sounds teem with wild fowl, 

 twenty-six kinds of ducks and seven varieties of geese being known to 

 occur there. During the spring and fall migrations along the beaches 

 are found swarms of plovers, snipe and sandpipers of various names; 

 even the handsome Hudsonian Curlew still comes to us, despite the 

 years of incessant persecution. 



About eighty species of native wild birds are known to be perma- 

 nent residents of North Carolina. Perhaps eighty other varieties come 

 to us in the spring to spend the summer months in our yards, fields, 

 swamps, and on our seashores. Thus about one hundred and sixty 

 kinds of birds are known to nest within the borders of the state. 

 Add to this sixty-five species which pass in the autumn on their long 

 trip southward to spend the cold months in a tropical climate, seventy 

 species at least which come from the frozen north to pass the ^\^nter in 

 this latitude, and twenty or thirty birds which have been recorded in 



