CHAPTER IX 



Pasturing and Soiling 



PASTURING NOT ALiWAYS ECONO]MY 



Its perennial nature and the reports of its wonderfully 

 productive and nutritive qualities might naturally lead 

 the farmer, without better acquaintance, to suppose that 

 with alfalfa he has perpetual pasture; that he will open 

 the gate to his live stock in the spring, send for the butcher 

 or buyer in October, and then winter in luxurious leis- 

 ure. But he finds that the easiest is not always the most 

 profitable way. Pasturing with any stock is an expensive 

 and extravagant method of gathering a valuable crop 

 from high-priced land. Where land is cheap and pasture 

 is wild, stock are not expensive help in gathering a cheap 

 crop ; but it is easily demonstrated that when land values 

 are high and a crop value is in a like altitude, man with 

 machinery can do the harvesting more economically than 

 can a cow, a steer or even a sheep. 



ALFAIiFA A TENDER PLANT 



In some respects alfalfa does not seem to be a natural 

 pasture plant. The stems are delicate, it will not thrive in 

 a hard, trampled soil, and the crowns when broken off 

 will not revive; if some of the plants bloom and drop 

 their flowers early in the season, they lose vigor and many 

 of them die. These peculiarities would at least indicate 



