’ ' American Agriculturist, April 7, l£f(^ 
The Fight in the Pasture Lot 
Gn the Devil’s Paint Brush and Other Devils Which Make Waste Land 
AY Jim, what in the world do you 
think you are doing tramping around 
with a pail out in that pasture?” 
called a man driving along the St. 
Lawrence River Road to a neighbor. “Couxe 
on over and see for yourself, Roy. This 
isn’t the first spring that I have done this 
and right over beyond there you can see 
what has happened,” returned Jim. 
The man in the pasture—James Peo of 
Cape Vincent—kept on with his work and 
when his neighbor reached him he was just 
emptying out the last of the contents of his 
pail. ‘AVhat have you got 
there” asked Roy. “Just plain 
16 per cent acid phosphate” 
replied Jim, “and that is what 
I put on that strip over yonder 
last spring, while up by that 
rock is where I put on some, 
two years ago. Come over and 
ril show you.” 
Seeing is Believing 
“You see all that devil’s 
paint brush between here and 
the road—well just look down 
that rock line and you can see 
the grass.” “Yes Jim, the 
devil’s paint brush seems to 
be all gone” replied Roy. 
“Well Roy, the paint bru"h 
was thick as hair on a dog all 
over when I put on the first 
acid rock back in 1919. I’ll 
admit that 1 was a bit skeptical for it didn’t 
seem possible that one could get rid of the 
pesky stuff as easy as that, but the county 
agent said that it should work, so we tried 
it. The white clover and blue grass look 
pretty don’t they? It all came in itself toO, 
for we didn’t put any grass seed on that 
place.” 
Jim Peo is one of the pioneers in pasture 
improvement in the North Country and in 
New York State for that matter, for up to 
that time only a few had done anything to¬ 
wards keeping up the productivity of their 
pasture land that could not be plowed, aside 
from putting on an occasional load of ma¬ 
nure. 
There are two kinds of pasture land in 
the State—that which can be broken up and 
reseeded \vhen its production runs down, 
and the remainder which is too steep, or too 
stony, or too rough to permit plowing. The 
latter has, had the greatest influence on the 
dairy industry, for where pioneers found 
land that was not fitted for cropping they 
turned to the dairy cow as the means of 
harvesting the crops of grass that would 
grow unaided among 
the stumps. This 
“cheap” pasture has 
been a big factor in 
the production of our 
dairy products. 
A Big Problem 
With probably con¬ 
siderably in excess of 
2,000,000 acres of this 
kind of pasture in New 
York State, the cost of 
milk production for 
many dairymen hinges, 
to a large extent, on 
the amount of grass 
that these acres will 
produce during the 
pasturing months. At 
the present time it is 
no secret that six 
weeks is the limit of 
good pasturage on 
much of the area, as 
By WILLIAM I. ROE 
far as the heavy producer of the lacteal fluid 
is concerned. After that she must be fed 
from other sources in order to keep her go¬ 
ing strong. All of which has a distinct in¬ 
fluence on the number of golden sheckels the 
dairy farmer can hope to keep in his jeans 
at the close of the year. 
In countries older than ours the condition 
of pastures has been a pressing problem for 
many years. In agricultural writings of 
over one hundred years ago, we find that 
To the right of the stake, pasture top dressed with lime and acid phosphate, note 
how better growth hides the stones. This is not always the needed application, it 
may be that a light broadcasting of nitrate of soda or a light application of barn¬ 
yard manure is all that is necessary. Trial strips tells the tale 
English farmers were concerned with im¬ 
provement methods. Harrowing was the 
main standby at that time. 
A few years ago the advisory committees 
of some of the dairy-county farm bureaus 
called attention to the fact that devil’s paint 
brush and other weeds were rapidly taking 
the place of blue grass and clover in many 
sections. They urged the need of studies 
and trials in order to be ready when the 
mass of farmers needed information as to 
what steps to pursue to bring the grass back. 
It was pointed out that financial conditions 
would require that any methods must be: 
relatively cheap, efficient, and easy to carry 
out. 
The State College Found Ready 
Accordingly county agents got busy. Let¬ 
ters of inquiry to experiment stations all 
over the United States showed that little 
attention had been given to this important, 
problem, and that New York State stations 
were far in the lead. The extension staff 
at Cornell had carried on sufficient work so 
they were ready to make suggestions. Farm¬ 
ers were found who had—accidently or 
otherwise—tried various combinations on 
pastures, and had results to show. It was 
learned that the use of stable manure would 
drive the intruders out, but most men need 
all the manure on their work land. 
Checking of the trials that had been made, 
showed that the same methods would not 
work under all conditions. Up in Jefferson 
and St. Lawrence counties plain 16 per cent 
acid phosphate was found doing wonderful 
and almost unbelieveable work. In the 
southern tier counties, lime was the material 
that was doing the trick. In 
other sections a combination 
of these two materials chased 
the devil’s paint brush arid 
coaxed back the timid white 
clover and blue grass. 
Several Combinations- Tried 
As a result of all these find¬ 
ings, a number . of farmers 
among whom was oiii’ friend 
Jim Peo, started out to dis¬ 
cover which particular treat¬ 
ment would prove best for 
their soil and local conditions. 
A strip of pasture liberally be¬ 
sprinkled with paint brush 
was given an application of 
ground limestone at the rate 
of one ton to the acre. An 
adjoining strip received 300 
pounds of 16 per cent acid 
phosphate (acid rock) to the acre. Next to 
that, 300 pounds of the acid phosphate and 
one ton of ground limestone were scattered 
separately over an acre. In many places a 
load of manure would be spread in another 
place. Sometimes the ground was gone over 
with a harrow either before or after or both, 
other times an application of a grass seed 
mixture was made, and occasionally every 
combination that could be worked out was 
tried. 
Did everyone achieve the mystic result of 
a luxuriant pasture with a velvety sod of 
blue grass, white clover, and other good 
pasture plants? Well—hardly. There were 
failures, some practically complete and from 
thrt all stages up to what might be termed 
perfection. Many times there were more 
lessons to be learned from the failures than 
from the successes. In the North Country 
alone, there are upwards of 150 farmers who 
have trials of this kind, which have been put 
on during the past four years, and other 
dairy counties have a goodly number. 
With all these trials to judge from, it is 
now possible for the farmer, who is anxious 
to keep a few more 
pennies from the milk 
check that from time 
immemorial has had 
the fade-away trick 
down pat, to figure out 
just what steps he will 
pursue. In order to 
cave some of the time 
he would have to spend 
visiting, we will pro¬ 
ceed to summarize 
some of the outstand¬ 
ing features. 
Selling Fertility 
l^he first thing that 
most people-fail to con¬ 
sider is, that when a 
pound of milk is sold, 
some ’ of the fariWs jff 
The East is a dairy country because it is a pasture country, and for that reason pasture improvement 
means improvement of the dairy business 
fertilit 
10,000 
will re 
{Contii 
sold w^iisfrit. 
)oundS(g<^ milk 
le equiva- 
fed cm page 313) 
