776 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



farming land of central Illinois or say any part of the state, and maintain 

 the soil in the right condition, there will be no trouble in keeping down 

 the weeds. 



These are some of the first things that need to be observed in the 

 growing of grass. Then, when we get our lands in that condition, we 

 need to keep them there. It is like what the old English gardner said 

 to an American lady, about making a lawn. In traveling in England she 

 was very much taken with the richness and the velvety, luxuriant growth 

 of the English lawns, and she thought she would get a recipe for making 

 that kind of a lawn and have some in her own dooryard, so she asked 

 him if he would kindly tell her how he made a lawn, and got it in 

 such nice condition. He said: 



"Madam it is very simple. I prepares the seed bed perfectly, and I 

 sows the grass seed, and then I waters it and mows it and waters it 

 it and mow for four hundred years, and then you have a good lawn." 



Now, that is the way to make a good pasture. We must get the soil 

 right, get the grass seed in there, and keep it in there, and then feed 

 the grass crop the same as the corn crop. We know we can not grow 

 corn unless we get the soil up and keep it up in a high state of fertility. 

 And the same is true of the grass crop. It we give the same attention 

 to the improvement of our grass lands, we will double the returns for 

 the outlay and labor and expense that we would get in improving our 

 tillable lands. 



THE PERMANENT PASTURE 



WALLACE'S FABMEE. 



Under western conditions and with land worth a hundred dollars 

 an acre we don't think it advisable to devote very much of the land on 

 the farm to a permanent pasture. It is, however, always advisable to 

 have some portion of it on which the plow is never under any circum- 

 stances permitted to enter. In this article we aim to get three ideas 

 clearly in the minds of the reader: First, how to lay down a permanent 

 pasture; second, how to keep it in the best condition; third, how to get 

 the most good out of it. 



It is better to put the permanent pasture on land that is not desirable 

 for rotation; for example, hilly land or land broken up by sloughs, 

 or land that has gravelly points in it, or land that is at too great a 

 distance from buildings for economical cultivation. On this land should 

 be sown every variety of grass that is known to thrive in that section, 

 for reasons pointed out in another article and treated more fully in this. 

 A permanent pasture should furnish the earliest possible bite and xhe 

 latest possible bite. From the time the warm spring days come cattle 

 long for a more succulent feed than that to which they have been 



