﻿UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



DEPARTMENT BULLETIN No. 1143 



Washington, D. C. 



April 10, 1923 



DRY-LAND PASTURE CROPS FOR HOGS AT 



HUNTLEY, MONT. 



By A. E. Seamans, Assistant Agronomist, Office of Dry-Land Agriculture Invesiigations, 



Bureau of Plant Industry. 1 



CONTENTS. 



Introduction 1 



Purpose and outline of the experiments 2 



Resultsin 1915 3 



Results in 1916 5 



Resultsin 1917 7 



Results in 1918 10 



Results in 1919 12 



Results in 1920 14 



Results in 1921 16 



Study of the results with different crops 17 



Conclusions 23 



INTRODUCTION. 



The transition from cattle-range conditions to grain farming has 

 been comparatively rapid in the Plains area of Montana. 



Relatively high yields of wheat from low-priced land during the 

 first few years when this change was taking place were a mighty 

 stimulant toward the rather general adoption of this one-crop system 

 of agriculture. 



The experience of the older agricultural States has shown that a 

 combination of live stock and crop farming formed the basis of 

 a more permanent agriculture than where either grain or live stock 

 was produced singly. Diversified farming as opposed to single-crop 

 farming has frequently been demonstrated as a superior system of 

 agriculture for the semiarid as well as for the humid sections of the 

 country. There is ample reason to suppose that, in general, the 

 dry-farming districts of Montana will prove to be no exception to 

 this experience; and, furthermore, there have been numerous in- 

 stances where the grain and forage returns from dry farms have been 

 profitably marketed through live stock. 



Live-stock production to a greater or less degree in connection 

 with grain farming not only affords the dry-land farmer another 

 direct source of income, but enables him to utilize profitably grain 



i The results reported in this bulletin are from experiments conducted under a cooperative arrangement 

 between the Montana Agricultural Experiment Station, the Office of Western Irrigation Agriculture 

 and the Office of Dry-Land Agriculture Investigations, Bureau of Plant Industry, and the Bureau of 

 Animal Industry, United States Department of Agriculture. 



The following men from the Animal Husbandry Division of the Bureau of Animal Industry have been 

 in charge of the animal-husbandry work at this station and have had the actual care of the bogs during 

 the years specified: C. V. Singleton, 1917-1913; R. E. Gongwer, 1919-1920: and R. E. Hutton, 1921. George 

 W. Morgan.who was in charge of the dry-land work at the Huntley, Mont., Experiment Farm from 1913 

 to 1915, outlined and conducted the experiments here reported during the season of 1915. 



26063—23 1 



