ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 143 



can farmers, whether they will or no, to abandon exclusive grain 

 production and adopt some form of live stock farming. The 

 growth of weeds, the multiplication of insect pests of varieties 

 almost innumerable, the waning fertility of soils that have been 

 long under grain cultivation, will absolutely compel farmers to 

 become students of live stock farming. 



The introduction of live stock means a decrease in the acre- 

 ;age under plow\ For live stock, and especially cattle, must be 

 kept on grass as great a portion of the year as possible; and if 

 our pastures are to be profitable, thhey must produce a nnich 

 larger amount of grass than they have done heretofore; which 

 means that they must be cultivated on the same principles, but 

 not necessarily in the same way that we cultivate our grain fields. 

 This is true especially of our permanent pastures. 



To illustrate what I mean : Why do permanent pastures grow 

 up in ragweed everv fall? not all of them, not all part:-, of them, 

 for there are portions of the field in which blue grass takes the 

 place of ragweed. Why ? For various reasons, which I have not 

 time to mention now. This can all be remedied, and easily, 

 if the farmer by reseeding with clover and timothy every two or 

 three years keeps his pastures full of healthy, thrifty roots to 

 take the place of weeds. The same may be said of meadows. 

 .Such gross carelessness in the management of pastures as we see 

 about us every day cannot long be tolerated in the twentieth 

 century. 



Following the methods above indicated, we shall be able to 

 ihandle live stock in some form or other on land won"n from one 

 to two hundred dollars an acre. The kind of live stock, whether 

 horses, cattle, sheep or hogs, will depend on the locality, on the 

 markets, on the character of the land, on the climate and on the 

 tastes of the farmer; but whatever class of live stock is kept, it 

 imust necessarily be of the improved type. 



The necessity for rotation and grasses as part of the rota- 

 tion will necessarily decrease the acreage in grain and in so 

 doing enable us to give it more thorough and intensive cultiva- 

 tion ; but it will not necessarily decrease the amount of grain that 

 will be produced on American farms, particularly corn and winter 



