CHAPTER IX 



Pasturing and Soiling 



PASTURING NOT ALWAYS ECONOMY 



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. 



ALFALFA 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 



