28 MASS. EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETIN 380 



for [red] clover. "^^ In 1747 Jared Eliot stated that "If Land be too poor, it 

 [clover] will not grow."^^ Recent experience with Ladino clover in Massachusetts 

 has shown that the superior yielding capacity of this plant and its phenomenal 

 ability to make a quick comeback after grazing can be realized only through the 

 maintenance of high levels of soil fertility. When this high level declines, as it 

 inevitably does three or four years after seeding, this species usually disappears. 

 Alfalfa, another high yielding species, reacts similarly, and there is mounting 

 evidence to show that certain of the grasses behave in the same manner. 



Soil Fertility and Feed Quality 



In addition to producing more feed, fertile soils produce better feed. This fact 

 was recognized many years ago by G. L. Clemence, when he stated that "A ton 

 of hay gathered from a third of an acre has more of the elements of animal growth 

 than has a ton raised upon an entire acre. . . . that one acre has been able to 

 produce only one ton to the other's three, is evidence in itself that it is lacking 

 in the elements of plant and animal growth. "^^ 



In recent years, coincident with generally declining fertility levels of many of 

 the hay and pasture sections of the country, there has been an increase in nutri- 

 tional diseases traced to mineral deficiencies in forage crops. Nutritional anemia 

 in cattle has been traced to a deficiency of iron in forage produced in certain sec- 

 tions of southeastern Massachusetts. ^^ Elsewhere in the country other nutritional 

 disorders or diseases have been variously traced to mineral deficiences of calcium, 

 phosphorus, and copper and still other elements.''^ 



Albrecht has expressed the situation thus: "Crops can make themselves only 

 from what is offered by the soil. Animals can make themselves only from what 

 is offered them by the crops as feed, and thus in the final analysis, the animals 

 reflect the fertility of the soil. "9* 



Palatability, another important factor in feeding any type of livestock, is 

 closely associated with feed quality. Feeds low in nutritive value are seldom 

 palatable. Wheat straw is an extreme example, yet the herbage supplied by 

 many of our "run-out" pastures in midseason is little more palatable. Indeed, 

 it is no coincidence that the hay and pasture plants most sought after by stock- 

 men for their nutritive value and for their palatability require a fertile soil. 



Soil Fertility and Resistance to Disease and Winter Injury 



Just as the health of animals is dependent upon nutritious forage, so is the 

 health of plants dependent upon a fertile soil. This conception is another idea 

 that is not new. Years ago, W. H. Bowkcr in 1880 stated that, "It has been 

 demonstrated over and over again that a healthy plant will withstand disease, 

 and a healthy plant means one that is properly fed from beginning to end."^^ 

 Professor Stone some years later wrote that "a condition of health is the natural 

 or normal thing with the plant, and that if we as cultivators do our part by making 

 the condition right for the normal development of the plant, many of these 

 troublesome problems of disease are thereby solved in advance. . . . The first 

 essential in the prevention of plant disease is to supply the plant with the condi- 

 tions for its best normal development."'"*' 



In recent vears, closer studies of nutrient deficiency symptoms in plants have 



^^Systema Agriculturae (London, 1675), p. 26. 

 9^Field Husbandry, p. 18. 



95Mass. State Bd. Agric. 38th Annual Report (18901. p. 297. 

 36journal of Dairy Science, XXI (1938), 59-68. 

 ^'National Fertilizer Association, Pamphlet No. 129, 1941. 

 '^Fertilizer Review, XIII (1938), No. 5. 



^^Mass. State Bd. Agric. 34th .Annual Report (1886), p. 209. 

 lO^Ibid.. 54th Annual Report (1906), p. 22. 



