CATTLE-GENERAL MANAGEMENT. 779 



To have good cattle, we must have good pasture, and to raise 

 cheap beef, we must extend the grazing season as long as is 

 consistent with a thrifty growth of the animal. The farmer who 

 is able to keep his cattle on pasture, on which they will thrive, 

 for an average of seven months of the year, will have a great 

 advantage over the one who can pasture but five months. And 

 the farmer who so manages that his cattle thrive and gain in 

 weight during the entire grass season, will get a larger profit 

 than he who so manages that his cattle for months barely hold 

 their own. To insure, then, the greatest profit, the farmer 

 will need early pasture, a variety of grasses or forage plants, 

 so as to keep up a succession of food, an abundant supply of 

 good water, shade, and some provision against severe drought. 

 In a word, his animals should be comfortable, and every thing 

 which tends to their comfort is profitable to the owner. 



There should be on every stock-farm some permanent pasture 

 of early grasses, and on all soils where it will flourish there is 

 no variety better for this purpose than blue-grass. It starts 

 very early in the spring, and it is not injured by tramping or 

 short-cropping, and as its growth is rapid at this season it may 

 be heavily stocked. It flourishes on rich or poor land, grows 

 well in the shade, and will protect rolling-lands from washing 

 better than any other grass. In ordinary seasons it may be 

 pastured a month earlier than the stock should go on clover, and 

 in cold, backward springs when, as in 1882, we have frost till 

 the middle of May, we can sometimes gain six weeks by the use 

 of this grass. For wet land, red-top will give the best satisfac- 

 tion. I think it inferior in quality to blue-grass, but it is early 

 and productive, and cattle eat it fairly well. Another early 

 variety which will give excellent satisfaction is orchard grass. 

 It is of rapid growth, has a broad blade which makes a large 

 amount of food which is not surpassed in sweetness or nutrition 

 by any other variety. 



The farmer who makes grazing his leading interest, should 

 seed a field with rye for the first pasture in spring, then turn on 

 a field of permanent pasture seeded with one or more of the 

 grasses named above, which should be stocked heavily enough 



