HAY AND PASTURE CROPS IN DRY AREAS 357 



Soils. Since on the arable farms, the aim should be 

 to rotate the pastures more or less with other crops, the 

 fact remains that these will grow best on moist soils. The 

 aim should be, therefore, to grow them to a greater ex- 

 tent on the more moist soils of the farm. On the drier 

 lands, grain pastures may serve the purpose relatively 

 better. 



Place in the rotation. The aim should be to start 

 pastures on clean land, hence they should be sown as a 

 rule on fallowed or cultivated land. Whether it would 

 answer to sow them after small grain, and pasture them 

 the season that they are sown in order to keep down 

 weeds and to firm the land by the treading has not been 

 ascertained as yet. Nor has it been determined as to 

 how long the land should be kept in pasture. The indi- 

 cations at present are, however, that, all things consid- 

 ered, short rotations will prove the most satisfactory. 

 The crops that follow .pastures will be the same as those 

 that follow newly broken prairie, that is, such crops as 

 winter wheat on fallow land, or such crops as flax, corn or 

 potatoes on sod land that has been broken in the spring. 



Preparing the land. While it is important that the 

 soil shall be fine, firm below and clean, that is to be sown 

 to grass, it may be very difficult to provide for it a clean 

 seed bed. This may arise, first, from the fact that in a dry 

 season weed seeds may not germinate though near the 

 surface, on fallow or on cultivated land, but may germi- 

 nate the next season after the grasses have been sown. It 

 may arise, second, from the large amount of weed seed 

 that may be carried to clean land and strewn over the 

 same. These contingencies may prove a real difficulty in 

 the way of getting a clean stand of grass. Because of 

 this, it may be wise to sow some of these grasses with a 

 nurse crop sown early in the season. 



Sowing. At the present time it would not be pos- 

 sible to state positively the very best method of sowing 



