MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



443 



tain states and the northern half of the Pacific 

 coast states. In this region, which we may appro- 

 priately call the timothy region, the type of rota- 

 tion which prevails very generally on farms where 

 rotation is practiced is corn, followed by small 

 grain (usually wheat in the southern part and oats 

 in the north), with timothy and clover sown with 

 the small grain. On the best farms the grass is 

 cut for hay one or two years and is sometimes 

 pastured one or two years more before being 

 broken up for corn. On poorly managed farms, 

 which are by far the more numerous, the grass is 

 left down for an indefinite number of years until 

 weeds especially adapted to meadow lands creep 

 in, rendering the hay of inferior quality and greatly 

 reducing the yield. Because of this practice, the 

 average yield of timothy and clover hay in this 

 country is only about a ton and a quarter per acre, 

 whereas it could easily be made two tons by a 

 proper system of rotation, combined with the best 

 use of farm manures. 



In New England we find a marked modification 

 of the rotation type prevailing generally over the 

 timothy region. On many of the best New England 

 farms the small grain is omitted from this rotation, 

 the grass seeds being sown directly in the corn at 

 the last cultivation. This operation in New Eng- 

 land is called "stocking" the land. On good New 

 England dairy-farms it is customary each year to 

 plow up about a third or a fourth of the grass- 

 land which most needs renewing. This plowed land 

 is then fertilized, planted to corn (sometimes peas 

 and oats or other cereal crops), and then restocked 

 with grass at the earliest opportunity. 



A different modification of the prevailing rota- 

 tion of the timothy region is found in certain 

 parts of the Pacific Northwest, mainly in western 

 Oregon, and, to some extent, in western Washing- 

 ton. In that section, instead of following grass- 

 lands by a cultivated crop, it is more usual to sow 

 small grain in the spring, especially oats. This is 

 followed the next year by a cultivated crop, after 

 which fall grain is sown. Timothy is sown with 

 this fall grain and clover added in the spring. The 

 reason for this arrangement of crops is found in 

 climatic conditions. Sod land cannot be broken up 

 and sown to corn in the spring because of the 

 absence of summer rains. It would be too dry 

 during the summer. The sod, therefore, must be 

 broken in the fall. Land being thus made available 

 for early spring operations, it is the logical place 

 to sow oats. Because of the absence of summer 

 rains, the oat land cannot be prepared for wheat 

 in the fall. On the other hand, it has been found 

 that wheat can be sown after a cultivated crop in 

 the fall, withvexcellent results. 



In those sections where alfalfa is the principal 

 meadow and pasture crop, as it is in all irrigated 

 sections of the West and is rapidly becoming so 

 along the eastern edge of the Plains region, rota- 

 tions, when they are used at all, are arranged with 

 reference to this crop. The land is usually left in 

 alfalfa for a period of three to five or more years. 

 When first broken up it is devoted either to a culti- 

 vated crop or a small-grain crop. This is usually 



followed by sugar-beets or potatoes (sugar-beets 

 are not grown the first year after alfalfa because 

 the large roots of the alfalfa interfere with their 

 cultivation). The land is then again devoted to 

 small grain, with which alfalfa is sown. There 

 are numerous variations of this general type of 

 rotation in the section in question. 



In the South rotation of crops is almost unknown. 

 In a few instances it is beginning to be practiced. 

 One of the best rotations in any part of the coun- 

 try is widely adapted to conditions prevailing in 

 the South. It consists of cotton, followed by corn, 

 with which cowpeas are sown. This crop is followed 

 by a winter crop of oats and a summer crop of 

 cowpeas. This gives four crops in three years, 

 leaving two blank spaces to be filled by cover-crops 

 or green-manures, namely, between the cotton and 

 the corn and between the cowpeas and the cotton. 

 In this rotation permanent or semi-permanent 

 grasses have no place. When live-stock-farming 

 becomes general in the South, and Johnson-grass 

 has spread over all the- territory to which it is 

 adapted, which it ultimately will do, there is a type 

 of rotation including Johnson-grass which will be 

 good. It closely resembles that just outlined and, 

 in practice, may be identical with it, but with the 

 Johnson-grass added. It will consist of cotton 

 followed by corn and cowpeas, these by a winter 

 crop of oats. After the oats are harvested, the 

 Johnson-grass is allowed to come up, and furnishes 

 two crops of hay the first year. The next year 

 it furnishes three cuttings. If then it is used an- 

 other year for pasture without disturbing the soil, 

 its rootstocks come very near the surface and it 

 can be broken up for cotton and got rid of almost 

 as easily as Kentucky blue-grass in the North. In 

 breaking up the sod for cotton, however, it is of the 

 utmost importance not to plow over four inches 

 deep, for if the rootstocks be buried deeper there 

 is great difiiculty in eradicating the grass. On 

 farms where the first type of southern rotation 

 is used there is always more or less permanent 

 grass-land usually devoted to Bermuda. 



I. The Timothy Region 



As already intimated, the principal grass crop of 

 the timothy region consists of a mixture of timo- 

 thy (Phleum pratense), Pig. 536, and red clover 

 (Trifolium pratense), Pig. 671. This crop usually 

 follows wheat or oats and precedes corn. The mix- 

 ture is left down by different farmers from one 

 year to an indefinite length of time. In the shorter 

 rotations on well-managed farms, two tons of hay 

 per acre are usual and the very best farmers secure 

 three and a half to four tons per acre. The longer 

 the grass remains down under ordinary manage- 

 ment the lower the yield. After three or four 

 years the yield usually falls below one ton per acre 

 and the hay consists largely of weeds. 



Timothy is usually sown in the fall with wheat 

 or other fall-sown grain. It may be sown at the 

 same time as the grain, from a special grass-seed 

 compartment on the grain drill, in which case 

 some farmers allow the timothy seed to fall in 



