Feeding Stuffs

FEEDING STUFFS.) Systems of Grazing.—If enough animals are not available to prevent the grass from sending up culms or seed stalks the pasture should be mowed to encourage a new growth of fresh leaves. Mowing also helps to control weeds and brush. Top-dressing with phosphates or nitrogen after mowing will hasten recovery. Pastures of turf-forming grasses like Kentucky bluegrass and carpet grass are injured more by light grazing than by heavy. In the latter case the weedy grasses and other undesirable plants are kept down and the better grasses occupy all the soil. Ro tation grazing combined with frequent fertilizing, so effective in Germany and England, has not been tested in America. A comparison of alternate and continuous grazing on bluegrass pastures in Virginia showed very little advantage in the alternate grazing of two pastures. In the West deferred and rotation graz ing improves the natural bunch-grass pastures.

Pasture Soils.

Like cultivated crops the grasses thrive best on the better soils. Certain soils in Kentucky with an unusually high percentage of available phosphoric acid and calcium make fine pastures. It is said that this bluegrass produces better horses and cattle than elsewhere. Light sandy soils are perhaps the poorest for pasture, although good pastures are possible there with the development of such grasses as Southern carpet grass. The ordinary pasture plants usually suffer from summer drought on sandy soils, and chemical fertilizers leach out quickly.

See HAY ; LUCERNE (Alfalfa) ; CLOVER ; CLOVER CULTIVATION ; ROTA TION OF CROPS ; CULTIVATION ; WEED DESTRUCTION ; GREENS.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-C. V. Piper, Forage Plants and Their Culture (rev. Bibliography.-C. V. Piper, Forage Plants and Their Culture (rev. ed. 1924) ; A. W. Sampson, Native American Forage Plants (1924) ; C. V. Piper and others, "Our Forage Resources," U.S. Dept. of Agric. Yearbook, pp. 311-414 (1923) and "Hay," ibid. pp. (H. N. V.)