New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1880-02-11
Permanent Pastures.

Al "VuIu appear CudC CQcr0 IS OUT one
class OF farmers who cultivate the steep
declivities of our limestone hills with
profit and without destroying their
fertility. These are the patient, pains
taking, persevering Rhineland Ger
mans, who, next to the frau and the
children, love the soil on which they
plant themselves. None but these are
equal to the tedious toll of terracing the
hillsides as they have seen or done
among the vine-clad hills of their
fatherland.
Was it necessity or improvidence
which induced the early settlers to
strip our beautiful hills of their magnifi-
cent forest robes, and lay them bare to
the devastation of torrentive rainsp Be
the cause what it may, the fact remains
that there is an aggregate of many
thousands of acres the primal fertility
of which is rapidly and literally being
washed away. Travel in any direction
we may, and gaping gullies and barren
ridges meet the eye. To remedy this
deplorable condition of things there is
fortunately a remedy easy and certain,
but more and more difficult of applica-
ton the longer it is deferred, and that
is to lay down in grass all declivitics so
steep as to suffer from heavy rain falls
and thenceforth hold them sacred from
the plow. True, there are other
methods beside permanent grass for
maintaining the integrity of the surface
soil; it may be done by terracing, b1
undertaking and subsol blowing, and
even by horizontal blowing, but, except
under peculiar conditions. these are all
too expensive or difficult in a country
where the fee simple in lands of mex
haustible fertility is yet to be had at
81. 25 an acre.
As competition in grain production
with the richer and cheaper lands in the
trans-M Mississippi States becomes more
difficult our farmers should give more
attention to grass, which, in the form
of beef and mutton and wool, milk,
butter and cheese win yield an income
which it is vain to expect from any crop
produced through the medium of the
pillow, the harrow and the hoe, all ex-
pensive in the hauling, and all more or
less destructive to the surface of our
limestone hills.
The fact that land in grass yields a
higher profit than when cultivated in
grain has been long known and prac-
ticed upon in many parts of our own
country, such as the dairy districts of
New York, and in Great Britain and in
Europe. The mystery Is not that the
fact IS so, but that SO many should re-
main ignorant Of it and fail to reap its
important benefits. Colonel John Tay-
lor, the author Of orator, in an essay
on the grasses, published more than
fifty years ago, thus expresses himself:
$ In Holland, where the cultivation
Of grass is generally prefe to bread.
lands sell higher @ land, without having
ito price enhanced BY adventitious cir
cumstances, than in any other country.
The industrious and prof loving Dutch
chose rather to import than to raise
their own breadstufs ct the expense Of
diminishing the culture Of the artificial
grasses. They are @ little likely a. any
people In. the world to make an election
BY which they would lose money. In
England, the cultivation of grass . 20
much more profitable than that a.
breadstu6 assto have obtained . pref
erence q the expense Of considerable
mportations of the latter. The. hear
ings % this fAct are wei hty. Hay and
butcherS' meat IN England ale neaxiyoe
the Same price . Il this countt
whereas, wheat there + often three
'lieo dearer than wheat here, and sel.s