FOEAGE CROPS IN NORTHERN GREAT PLAINS. 17 



3,713,780 cattle of all ages and of all kinds; 833,746 swine, 2,710,300 

 sheep, 1,510,298 horses (excluding colts and yearlings), 23,088 mules 

 2 years old and over, and 5,548,256 head of poultry. Considering 

 the acreage and the production of cultivated crops, the number of 

 cattle and sheep is very large. Beef cattle greatly outnumber 

 dairy stock and furnish a large exportable surplus. Dairy cattle 

 are relatively unimportant from a cash-income standpoint, and the 

 quantity of dairy products produced is actually inadequate for the 

 needs of the region. The number of swine is relatively small. 

 Twenty-five States each produced more swine, according to the 

 census, than the entire region. Iowa reported upward of 8,000,000, 

 or more than nine times the number. 



It is evident from an examination of the agricultural resources 

 of the northern Great Plains that it is the range and native-grass 

 lands and not the cultivated land that make the livestock industry 

 what it is, notwithstanding the fact that a vast quantity of small 

 grain is produced and that the grain tonnage is actually as great 

 as that of the harvested forage. Livestock and forage have proved 

 to be the foundation features of the agriculture of the region. This 

 has been true since the first settlement, and from present indi- 

 cations livestock will be relatively more important as the country 

 develops. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH FORAGE CROPS. 



The forage-crop data in this bulletin have been obtained from 

 experiments conducted at various points in the northern Great 

 Plains, chiefly at Redfield, S. Dak., Moccasin and Havre, Mont., 

 Sheridan, Wyo., and Mandan and Dickinson, N. Dak. The work 

 at Redfield has been conducted entirely by the Office of Forage- 

 Crop Investigations, while that at the other stations has been in 

 cooperation with the Office of Dry-Land Agriculture Investigations 

 and the various State agricultural experiment stations. Additional 

 data have been obtained from the records and bulletins of the Office 

 of Dry-Land Agriculture Investigations and from various State 

 publications, which give the experimental results at Belle Fourche and 

 Ardmore,S. Dak., and at Edgeley, Hettinger, and Williston, N. Dak. 



The weights recorded are of field-cured material, except as other- 

 wise noted at Havre, Moccasin, and Redfield. To reduce the field- 

 cured results to an air-dry basis it is estimated that a deduction 

 of 10 to 15 per cent should be made for the finer stemmed forage 

 plants, such as alfalfa and the grasses, and from 20 to 30 per cent 

 ior the coarser forages, such as sorghums, Sudan grass, and sweet 

 clover. 



The yields reported are considerably greater than a farmer can 

 reasonably expect, largely on account of the greater care in pre- 

 paring and sowing the various crops. Furthermore, some increase 

 is attributable to the greater quantity of moisture available along 

 the sides of plats. 



Table 8 gives in condensed form the average yields of some of 

 the leading forage and cereal crops at the various stations. It is 

 believed that this table will be of some assistance in indicating the 

 comparative productive capacity of the various sections over a 

 period of years. The variations in yields are for the most part 



82537°— 24| 3 



