FORAGE PLANTS OF SECONDARY OR UNDETERMINED IMPOR- 

 TANCE FOR THE SOUTHERN STATES, AND THE COMPOSI- 

 TION OF FORAGE PLANTS GROWN IN THE SOUTH. 



S. M. Tracy. 



The Department of Agriculture lias frequently called attention to tlie 

 advantages of the South as a hay-producing region, and as long ago as 

 the year 1854 distributed seeds of several new varieties of grasses to 

 planters in Georgia and Florida. Many distributions were made later, 

 and the results (rf these efforts were so encouraging that in 1888 Com- 

 missioner Colman established a station for special work with forage 

 plants in connection with the Mississipj^i Experiment Station, and dur- 

 ing the following year additional stations were provided for in connection 

 with the State experiment stations of North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, 

 and Louisiana. This arrangement enabled the Department to make 

 systematic tests of the different plants on the most characteristic 

 Southern soils, and to unify the work in such a manner as to make it 

 more economical and effective than was possible by any miscellaneous 

 distributions. This work was assigned to the immediate suj^ervision of 

 the writer, under the general direction of thebotanist of theDejiartment. 



During the 5 years since the work was inaugurated 508 species have 

 beeni)lanted at these stations, and many of them under widely varying 

 conditions. Seeds of mauy.species were obtained through the kindness 

 of Department correspondents in Australia, France, India, Eussia, and 

 other foreign countries; others were secured from the arid regions of 

 the Southwest and from Mexico, and special attention was given to the 

 cultivation of such local and native species as seemed to have value for 

 either hay or pasture. 



Summer pastures are abundant and good throughout the entire South, 

 but from December to March the native pastures are poor and unreli- 

 able. In nearly the whole of this region annual jjlants like crab grass, 

 Mexican clover, and lespedeza have been the main reliance for hay, and 

 permanent meadows like the timothy and clover fields of the Xorth have 

 been rare. In the older portions of the country the vegetable matter 

 in the soil has become almost exhausted by long cultivation in cotton 

 and other hoed crops, and the natural fertility of the fields can be restored 

 most cheaply by cultivating leguminous i)lants like red clover and cow- 

 pea, by turning under green crops, and by pasturing the fields. 



The work undertaken by the Department has been, in its main object, 

 to ascertain the value of different forage plants for permanent and tem- 

 porary meadows and pastures, and for green manuring. 



