WHERE GRASS PAYS 



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white clover that yielded marvelous burdens of forage. 

 Furthermore, cattle on those irrigated pastures become 

 as fat as we can make them in Ohio with grass and corn. 

 I think one of the first works that should be undertaken 

 to increase the production of grass, beef, mutton and 

 colts on eastern fields should be to begin to utilize our 

 streams, now all running to waste, in irrigating grass 

 fields. It is not, of course, possible except in exceptional 

 locations, and the first installation costs labor and money, 

 but after once it is installed the maintenance is very 

 cheap and the production of the land should be nearly 

 trebled. Water meadows, however, commonly need no 

 other fertilization than that brought by the water, and 

 build themselves steadily in fertility from year to year. 

 Where Grass is Most Profitable. The fact that the 

 moisture supply is the limiting factor in the production 

 of meadows and pastures determines to a considerable 

 degree their profitable placing. Where there is abundant 

 summer rainfall there grow the rankest grasses; where 

 heats and drouth prevail there one must plow and till 

 in order to reap. Thus New England, New York and 

 the moist mountain valleys of Virginia seem the most 

 natural grass regions of the United States, though good 

 production is seen as far west as the Mississippi River, 

 and south to the line of Tennessee. Iowa, Missouri, 

 Kansas and Nebraska have decreasing rainfall and hot 

 summers; here evidently, deep-rooted crops such as 

 alfalfa, or tilled crops such as corn or sorghum, are 

 most profitable. Thus in Oklahoma and the Panhandle 

 of Texas it once required 20 acres to keep a steer a year 

 on the short but thick and nutritious grass that was 



