SERICEA AND OTHER PERENNIAL LESPEDEZAS 29 



pedeza, but cattle can learn to like it, and when they do good 

 resu.ts follow. Sericea has high carrying capacity and makes 

 its growth during the summer when bluegrass, redtop, and orchard 

 grass are in poor condition. 



At the Beltsville, Md., animal-husbandry farm a 6-acre field 

 containing 1 acre of mixed-grass pasture, 2 of sericea and annual 

 lespedeza, and 3 of sericea only has been grazed for several years. 

 Seven Shorthorn heifers were turned on in the spring (May 8, 

 1935) and kept there without supplementary feed until October 23. 

 The total gain was 560 pounds for the seven head. A similar 

 lot of cattle on permanent grass pasture, the same season, gained 

 198 pounds. The cattle did not graze the sericea until about 

 July 15, when it was about 2 feet high. They grazed it down to 

 a few inches and kept it there until they were taken off on Oc- 

 tober 23. In 1934, Hereford steers were used. They a 1 so fed 

 on the sericea when it was 24 inches high and grazed it down to 

 10 inches by August 10, when they were removed. A heavy 

 new growth was made, and on September 26, cows were turned 

 into this pasture. They ate the sericea readily and cut it down to 

 8 inches by November 6. 11 



The Missouri Experiment Station (11) records an experience 

 with grazing at Green Ridge, Mo. The cattle were turned from 

 good sweetclover pasture to the sericea field June 15 and for the 

 first few days showed a distaste for the crop. Later they grazed 

 it freely. The milk flow while the stock were on sericea remained 

 constant and equal to that from sweetclover. At the Mississippi 

 branch station at McNeill sericea has been grazed for several 

 years ; in fact, grazed so hard that the stand has been weakened. 



In Ohio, sericea in a permanent pasture was grazed apparently 

 as well as the other plants. A farmer in southeastern Virginia 

 has grazed a hillside field of sericea for 3 years, turning the cows 

 on it in spring and keeping them there all summer. In western 

 Kentucky in 1934 a farmer grazed his sericea with horses, mules, 

 and dairy cows (fig. 10). In western Tennessee a farmer has 

 grazed a 20-acre fieM for two seasons, and the cattle when sold 

 in fall were as good as grass-fed cattle. This land is so poor that 

 a grass pasture would yield almost nothing. Another Tennessee 

 farmer, on good land, has grazed sericea for 3 years with cattle, 

 hogs, and horses. He turns the stock on early. A farmer in 

 Oklahoma reports having grazed his field with sheep and dairy 

 cows from May 10 to frost. A Kentucky farmer kept 15 animal 

 units on 8 acres of sericea from early spring until late June, when 

 he took them off to cut a hay crop late in July. In the dry season 

 of 1936 in north-central Tennessee, 40 cattle were kept on 4 

 acres for 6 weeks during which time they had no other feed. 



The possibility that the failure to secure good gains on sericea 

 in some instances might be due to the differences in botanical 

 composition of the sericea pastures, particularly on eroded, less 

 fertile soils, was in part responsible for the initiation of additional 



11 Work done cooperatively by the Bureaus of Plant Industry and Animal 

 Industry. 



