WILL MORE FORAGE PAY 9 00 



and farm experience are available. The necessity for the temporary 

 crops for summer grazing in many areas can be overcome technically 

 through irrigation. But data are too limited to generalize about 

 whether it would be generally profitable to irrigate permanent 

 pastures. 



From the income side, this preliminary study suggests quite strongly 

 that except for special situations, southern farmers will not find it 

 profitable to go entirely to hay. pasture, and other forage. On the 

 other hand, it strongly suggests that farmers will find it profitable to 

 go much further into hay. pasture, and other forage for utilization by 

 livestock than they have gone thus far. Farm- completely covered 

 with grasses and legumes can be found here and there and they make 

 excellent ease studies, but the majority of southern farms will not soon 

 be so completely covered. It takes a long time to make the adjustment, 

 especially on small farms and by farmers who do not have ready cash 

 or who need the money for current living expenses. 



It should be pointed out here that recent years have been good ones 

 for farmers to make the adjustment to grass. If the economic incentive 

 has not been good enough during this period one is justified in asking. 

 when will it be good enough \ Some farmer- admit freely that certain 

 practices, such as high applications of fertilizer, were adopted because 

 their incomes were good and they considered it one way of putting- 

 money in the bank. They expect to withdraw this money if economic 

 conditions put them under pressure. As some say. "We will coast 

 along." In some instances expenditures for heavy applications of fer- 

 tilizer have probably been made to reduce income taxes. That is to 

 say. our tax system has promoted grassland agriculture. 



There are economic obstacles, institutional obstacles, lack of knowl- 

 edge, plain inertia, and other reason- for the seemingly slow change 

 to production and utilization of forage. Nevertheless, the thousands 

 of farmers who add a few acres of pasture, a few hundred pounds of 

 fertilizer, some new grasses and legumes, and other practices, all put 

 together, will make a lot more hay, pasture, and other forage and 

 livestock in the South. 



Nearly all examples of outstanding grassland farms are operated 

 by outstanding men. One thing common to all the case farms studied 

 in the South is the superior managerial ability of the operators, which 

 seems to go hand in hand with a willingness to experiment on a farm 

 basis with ideas that look promising. 



Farm experience and experimental results indicate that it is tech- 

 nically feasible and economically profitable to produce milk in the 

 South from a year-round grazing system. Both sources of informa- 

 tion suggest, however, that it will pay to feed concentrates, even 

 though purchased, to the higher producing cow-. 



Information available as to year-round grazing systems: specialized 

 experiments on winter, rotational, and forest grazing, and supple- 

 mental feeding: and experiments on fertilization offer many possi- 

 bilities for further economic appraisal. Except in a limited way. data 

 have not been worked into possible farm organizations for this prelim- 

 inary study. Possible combinations that might be made from experi- 

 mental results are so numerous that all of them will never be tested as 

 farm alternatives. Some of the more promising will have to be tried 

 out to see how they will fit into the operations of representative farms. 



