CHAPTER V 



IMPROVEMENT AND MANAGEMENT OF FARM 

 PASTURES 



" Show me your pasture and I'll tell you what figures you may 

 place on the note." Thus concluded the country banker to 

 the stockman-farmer who was soliciting funds to be used in 

 the spring planting. The financier was himself a successful 

 farmer, and the correctness of his logic cannot be denied, for 

 good pasture is everywhere concomitant with sound manage- 

 ment of the farm as a whole. 



Without ample pasture feed of good quality it is quite as 

 impossible to succeed in the production of meats and dairy 

 products as it is to maintain economically the fertility of the 

 soil. The highest type of agriculture is invariably found in 

 those regions where pasture crops and livestock are prominent. 

 A good pasture is an asset and credit to any farm; a poor one 

 may be a distinct liability, and it is a reflection on the owner. 



Of the millions of acres of farm pasture lands in the United 

 States, by far the greater portion consists of areas inferior in 

 quahty to those under tillage. This, to be sure, is a natural 

 condition. In the settlement of any country the most easily 

 tilled and readily accessible lands — those upon which manual 

 labor is to be expended — are the first to grow the wheat, barley, 

 and corn, and contribute to the bread supply of the nation. 

 The poorly drained portion, or the remote '' forty " with a few 

 clumps of willows or other rank-growing vegetation, is selected 

 for the pasture. The possibilities of improvement of such lands 

 are practically unlimited. Drainage alone, for instance, may 

 result in completely replacing a rank, unpalatable cover by 

 edible vegetation; or, indeed, the proper stocking of the lands 

 may so improve their crop production that these " outcast 



86 



