GREEN FORAGE AND HAY CROPS 91 



3. The Gulf Coast Region: Crab grass, beggar weed, Mexican clover, 

 velvet bean, carpet grass. 



4. The Plains Region: Alfalfa, brome grass, foxtail and broom corn, 

 millets, sorghum. 



5. The Rocky Mountain States: Alfalfa, timothy and clover, orchard 

 grass, wheat and oat hay. 



6. The Pacific Coast: Alfalfa, grain hay (wheat, oats, and barley), 

 timothy and clover, orchard grass, velvet grass. 



The area devoted to permanent pastures is gradually decreasing 

 with the development of more intensive systems of agriculture 

 throughout the country and the settlement of the western ranges. 

 The highest value of good farm land cannot be reached by keeping 

 it in permanent pasture. Arable land so occupied will generally 

 yield only a fraction of the feed that would be secured by a more 

 intensive system of culture from annual cultivated or hoed crops 

 or perennial legumes. According to good authorities, an acre of 

 alfalfa, if used as green feed (soiling, p. 95), will give as much 

 nutritive forage as four acres in permanent pasture. In the experi- 

 ments conducted at the Pennsylvania station, three to five- times as 

 much digestible feed was produced per acre by means of soiling 

 crops, e.g., rye and corn, or corn and clover, as by pasturage 2 

 (Fig. 11). 



Care of Pastures. The low returns in feed materials secured 

 from permanent pastures are generally due to the fact that they re- 

 ceive little or no attention in the way of remedial measures; they 

 are ieft to take care of themselves and are therefore likely to pro- 

 duce but little feed. Under a correct system of management, 

 pasture lands are fertilized with farm manure or a complete com- 

 mercial fertilizer every few years, in the fall or spring, and lime 

 added as needed; they are harrowed, if possible, and seeded with a 

 mixture of grasses and legumes in open places. Weeds are kept 

 down by going over them with a mower once or twice in the season. 

 Stock should, furthermore, not be turned in early in the spring, 

 when the young plants would be seriously injured or checked in their 

 growth by grazing and tramping, and only a limited number of 

 animals are pastured, so that the grass will not be eaten off too 

 closely to enable the plants to resume a quick growth. Drainage 

 of pasture land is also important, as a regular but not excessive 

 water supply is essential to a healthy and rapid growth of plants. 

 The amount of feed that pasture land can supply will doubtless be 

 largely increased by adopting a system of management similar to 

 that just suggested. 



2 Pennsylvania Report, 1889, p. 101. 



