The Grasses, Fresh and Oured. 179 



for sowiug tlie seed and gathering the harvest from which prov- 

 ender for the next season is to come. 



It is a fact which cannot escape the attention of students of 

 agricultural economics, that our stockmen rely too blindly upon 

 pastures for the maintenance of their cattle during half the year. 

 But a few centuries ago the inhabitants of Great Britain trusted 

 to the growth of natural herbage for the support of their stock not 

 only in summer but throughout the entire year. If their animals, 

 foraging for themselves as best they could, survived the winter, 

 all was well; if they died from starvation, it was an "act of 

 God. ' ' We have abandoned the crude practices of our ancestors, 

 and now carefully store in barns abundance of provender for 

 feeding flocks and herds during winter's rigor. "We are amazed 

 that our ancestors were so improvident as to gather no winter 

 feed for their cattle, while for ours great barns are built and stored 

 with provender. By turning cattle to pasture in spring and let- 

 ting them forage as best they may untU winter we show that all 

 the barbai-ic blood has not yet been eliminated from our veins. If 

 the summer rains are timely and abundant, the cattle are well 

 nourished on these pastures; if drought prevaUs they suffer for 

 food as surely, and often as severely, as did the live stock of 

 England in winter, ages ago. To suffering from scant food there 

 is added the heat of "dog days" and the ever-present annoyance 

 of blood-sucking flies. Our stockmen will never be worthy of 

 their calling, nor their flocks and herds yield their best returns, 

 until ample provision is made against drought- ruined pastures in 

 summer. Every argument which stands in favor of storing 

 provender for stock in winter holds with equal force for providing 

 feed to make good any possible shortage of pastures in summer. 



258. Yields of pasture grass. — At the Pennsylvania Station, * 

 Holter studied the yield of a pastui-e consisting of blue grass and 

 white clover. By means of a lawn mower with attachment the 

 grass as cut was gathered, with the following yields per acre: 



1 Kept. 1889. 



