30 FORQGE CROPS. 



more or less of it has been grown for years to provide 

 forage for cattle and swine ; but, so far as known to 

 the author, it has not been grown until recently as 

 forage for sheep; and yet there is no other class of 

 live stock which are capable of turning sorghum pas- 

 ture to better account. During the winter of 1893-4 

 the author sought diligently for information as to the 

 adaptability of sorghum as a pasture plant for sheep, 

 but found none. In not a single instance, by corre- 

 spondence or otherwise, was anyone found who could 

 give a line of information as to the value of sorghum 

 for sheep pasture. Doubtless, there were those who 

 had tried it, but the fact just stated will show how 

 little was known at that time as to the value of this 

 most wonderful forage plant in providing pasture 

 for sheep. As an all-round food producing plant 

 corn is quite ahead of sorghum, but as a forage plant 

 sorghum is quite ahead of corn. It is at least ques- 

 tionable if we have a forage plant in the United 

 States that is so well adapted for being grown over 

 so wide an area. 



Sorghum is pre-eminently a summer pasture. 

 Blue grass and various other grasses slumber during 

 much of the summer. Medium red clover languishes, 

 especially in the south, where midsummer suns wax 

 warm. Rape becomes crisp and faded at that season, 

 if sown early, unless under exceptionally favorable 

 conditions as to moisture. Mammoth clover has 

 done its work for the year, and the same is true of 

 alsike. These two take a rest after harvest, and as 

 a pasture in the autumn they are like the deceitful 

 water brooks that have dried. Then it is that sor- 

 ghum is at its best. Being a child of the sun, it strikes 

 its roots downward and pushes its leaves upward and 



