EXPERIMENTS WITH PERMANENT PASTURES 



By A. B. Beaumont, Professor of Agronomy 



INTRODUCTION 



When the farmers of the early colonial period first began to turn their stock 

 on the upland pastures of what is now the State of Massachusetts, they no doubt 

 found good to excellent grazing conditions. This is a fair assumption, because 

 practically all our present permanent pastures were originally wooded, and most 

 wooded areas, on account of the accumulation of leaf mold and forest debris, 

 are fertile for some years after clearing. It is well known that the productivity 

 of Massachusetts upland pastui'es is now generally very low. Just when these 

 l)astures l)egan to fail sufficiently to attract the attention of farmers is not clear 

 from records now available. Very likely, on account of sparseness of settlement 

 and constant clearing of new land, the pasture problem did not l)econie serious 

 until after the Revolutionary period. In any event, we find mention of this 

 problem in the records of agricultural societies of seventy-five to one hundred 

 years ago. 



Charles L. Flint, (6) in an "Essay on Top Dressings for Mowings and Pasture 

 Lands." wrote in 1850, "it is a m tter of regret that the improvement of waste 



lands has not been treated in a manner which its importance deserves 



The idea was formerly entertained that pasture lands were sufficiently enriched 

 by the animals which fed them. Practical men begin to think otherwise." He 

 advised the use on pastures of such top-dressing materials as were then available 

 to the farmer, including meadow mud, peat mud, manure, lime, wood ashes, 

 land plaster, bone dust, charcDul, compost. Another writer (12) of about the 

 same period gives a rather accurate description of the condition of many Massa- 

 chusetts pastures of that time in the following words: "The great want of the 

 milk raisers and butter-makers at the present time, is the restoration to fertility 

 of their exhausted pasture lands. There are thousands of acres that for- 

 merly yielded good pasturage; they are covered with small bushes and mosses, 

 and yield so little grass, that ten acres will scarcely keep a cow. Many of these 



pastures are rocky and hilly, and cannot be ploughed We do not expect 



mowing lands without irrigation or top-dressing, to continue to yield crops for 

 successive generations. \Miy should we expect it of pastures?" 



From the middle of the last century on to the present time more or less 

 frequent mention of the pasture problem is found in the literature. No doubt 

 the acuteness of the New England pasture problem was deferred until compara- 

 tively recent years by tremendous development of the grain sections of the 

 Middle and Far West. Imported grain concentrates were cheap, and they were 

 fed by dairy farmers without stint. Thus there was no strong economic urge to 

 improve pastures, and most New England farmers fell into the habit of regarding 

 the pasture as one part of the farm which could look out for itself. It is only 

 within the past decade or two that Massachusetts farmers have begun to think 

 of the pasture herbage as a crop which will give returns for labor and fertilizer 

 much as will hay, corn or any other crop. 



The Pasture Problem 



Massachusetts had a total population of 4,249,(314 or 528.6 p(>rsons to the 

 square mile, in 1930. With its large, compact urban population, with gtjod roads 

 and short distances, this State presents an ideal market for dairy products. 



