122 The Dawn of a New Constructive Era 



worked out. The cost of fencing can very readily be ascertained. 

 These and similar points being determined, we are at once face 

 to face with the question of the productive value which these 

 lands may then have for cattle grazing. By this time you are 

 probably of the opinion that I am a doleful prophet, and that I am 

 Sees South as throwing cold water on the idea of developing these lands for cat- 

 Nation's Neiv tie production. Far from it. I have for more than ten years main- 

 Lattle Loun- twined that our most promising future source of considerable 

 increase in beef cattle production in this country is in the South- 

 ern territory south of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi rivers. 

 The Western range has reached its capacity. The increase in 

 production in the corn belt has not kept pace with the increase in 

 population, and in order to supply the corn-producing sections 

 with feeders at reasonable prices we must look to development in 

 the South. 



Regarding the territory as a whole, the cut-over timber lands 

 are by nature promising for cattle producing purposes. But these 

 cut-over timber lands at present do not produce cattle econom- 

 ically, and they will not produce cattle economically until the 

 grass-producing possibilities of these lands are thoroughly dem- 

 onstrated. 



Granted, then, that for a somewhat long time to come, cattle 

 raising rather than cattle fattening will prevail in the South as a 

 whole, it is apparent that after tick eradication, the problem of 

 most pressing importance, particularly in the cut-over timber 

 country, will be the maintenace of the herds which will be estab- 

 More and Bet- lished on the tick-freed areas. This maintenance problem has 

 ter Pasturage ^wo phases — the pasture period and the wintering period. The 

 Essential pasture problem must be solved before the promised development 



of the Southern cattle industry becomes an accomplished fact. 

 Not only in the cut-over timber lands, but elsewhere throughout 

 the South, the pasture problem presents itself as the most im- 

 portant feature after the tick eradication problem is solved. 



The botanical features of native Southern forage plants are, 

 of course, well known. The adaptability of certain imported 

 ones is also fairly well understood, but there is a very great deal 

 to learn of the relative merits of different plants, their behavior 

 when pastured, their proper management under pasture, and their 

 productive value as pasture plants. 



Just one question is a fair example of the importance of 

 these problems, and this one question crystallizes everything 



