EANGE IMPROVEMENT BY DEEEBBED GRAZING. 6 



PRODUCTION OF FOLIAGE IN THE EARLY GROWING SEASON. 



The amount of foliage produced early in the growing season and 

 the promptness with which growth begins in the spring are direct 

 indications of the vigor of forage plants and show the possibilities 

 of revegetation. To respond vigorously to the advent of the grow- 

 ing season, the plant must have stored in its roots during the previ- 

 ous season a large amount of starch and other foods which nourish 

 it from the time that growth begins until there is enough foliage to 

 manufacture sufficient food for the rapidly growing parts both 

 above and below ground. If the plant is robbed of its green herbage 

 during the main growing season, especially if it happens in two or 

 more successive years, growth in the spring is not only delayed by 

 several days, but foliage production is scanty and the amount of food 

 which the plant is able to manufacture is consequently decreased. 

 If, when the plant is in this weakened condition, the herbage is 

 again removed while green and tender, growth the following season 

 begins still later and even less herbage than before is produced. If 

 this sort of thing is kept up, the plant is sure to die. 



To determine what effect removal of the herbage at different times 

 in the season has on forage production, the herbage on a number of 

 selected plots on which the vegetation had been Aveakened by con- 

 tinued close and early grazing was clipped experimentally for three 

 successive seasons. On half the plots the herbage was clipped as soon 

 as growth was well started and subsequently clipped once every 

 month; the other plots were undisturbed until August 25, at which 

 time the seed had matured, when the herbage was closely cut. 



The vegetation clipped monthly lived through the period of the 

 experiment, but in the fourth year, when none of the plots was dis- 

 turbed, the herbage was very sparse and short, while the time of be- 

 ginning growth was so much delayed that no fertile seeds were pro- 

 duced. On the other hand, the vegetation clipped only after seed 

 maturity each year was, at the beginning of the fourth year, approxi- 

 mately 150 per cent greater in volume than that on the plots clipped 

 monthly, while growth began in the spring fully as soon as where the 

 plants were protected yearlong. 



Examination of the roots in the autumn, after growth had ceased, 

 showed that the plants clipped monthly had stored very little food, 

 while the vegetation clipped only after seed maturity were found to 

 have stored as much food as plants protected yearlong. 



Anj^thing which either favors, or retards the activities of the roots, 

 which absorb food elements and moisture from the soil, later affects 

 in one way or another the herbage production. One of the chief 

 functions of the part of the plant above ground, especially the foliage, 

 is to manufacture plant food, and if this process is to be continuous 



