238 PROFITABLE STOCK RAISING 



Americans would even consider a permanent pas- 

 ture. They figured that land seeded to grass crops 

 for two or three years should be plowed up and 

 planted to corn. They thought that blue grass 

 turf, or, in fact, turf of any of our grass crops, after 

 the third or fourth year became sodbound, as they 

 called it; that it must be torn up and plowed up. 

 As a consequence the very few pieces of permanent 

 pasture in existence were rather unsatisfactory, 

 because of the fact that they were so new. Of late 

 years, however, permanent pastures are being es- 

 tablished on all the big farms in the country, and 

 they are exceedingly satisfactory. Blue grass pas- 

 tures 25 years old on a central Illinois farm will 

 return more per acre than in any other crop. Al- 

 most any farmer can devote 15 to 20 acres to a 

 permanent blue grass pasture. It should be near 

 the house and barn and it should be used almost 

 exclusively for a night pasture for horses during 

 the working season, a pasture for milch cows and 

 probably a few sheep. Twenty acres will take care 

 of all the work and milk animals on a i6o-acre farm 

 and leave sufficient growth in the autumn to pro- 

 vide winter grazing during the mild days. This 

 pasture will start ten days to two weeks earlier in 

 the spring than the ordinary pasture, so that the 

 grazing period is very greatly extended, the supply 

 of nutritious forage very large and the profit from 

 permanent pasture great, to say nothing of the 

 satisfaction of having a splendid piece of turf ad- 

 jacent to the farm buildings. 



MANURING PASTURES 



Permanent pastures on the rich soils of the 

 United States will not require much additional 

 manuring. The droppings from the animals pas- 



