The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-09-08
agricultural.
T. n. HOSklNs, M. D., Editor,
Newport, Vermont.
Improve Your Pastures.

Where are we going to get the ma
nure?" we seem to hear in reply. Well,
you must get it. You can't grow grass
and feed it off forever without restor-
ing the fertility which is extracted from
the soil. Where common sense does
not teach that, experience surely will.
There are a few soils, like the Ken
lucky bluegrass lands, that seemed for
awhile to contradict this statement.
But, like the rich and " inexhaustible :"
western prairies, time, which sets all
things even, has told different story.
The " bluegrass " of Kentucky is just
simply the June-grass of Vermont. On
thin, dry, drift soils it makes little show,
except here and there in a rich hollow
But put it on just the soil it likes, the soft
limestone land of central Kentucky,
which decays rapidly and is rich in phos-
phoric acid, potash and magnesia, it
grows over whole counties as it grows
here only in rich door-yard. 1t makes
no great amount of top, even there,
though field of it in bloom has look
we do not see here, and gives it its
Kentucky name. 1t makes very heavy
hay, which has no rival in nutritious
quality, unless it be the much-abused
witch-grass." But the Kentuckians
hay but little of it, for in their short
and broken winters they prefer to sup
plement it with oats and corn, with the
addition of little clover and timothy
hay. Even on their wonderful soil,
which has no equal (unless it be the
Aroostook region of Maine), the days
of free bluegrass are over. Rich as the
soil is, it began to kick some time ago
against the drain of constant taking
and never giving. Although still as
good SOIL essentially, as it ever was
its accumulated fertility from the old
forest days has been fed out to the fine
beeves, mules and horses which are
Kentucky's pride; and now the blue
grass pastures have to be carefully man
aged and not overworked in order to
make them carry stock as they once did.
Like the results of poor farming every
where, this decline was charged to
everything but the real cause. From
unheard-of dry seasons - down to
northern invaders " the invention of
man was exhausted before the fact
could be admitted that the bluegrass
farms were at last beginning to fail. AS
soon as this was realized, it was not
difficult to bring them up again; very
moderate amount of good farming will
always restore the productiveness of a
naturally good soil. We have not the
genuine bluegrass soil in Vermont,
though some parts of the Champlain
Valley resemble that section very much,
even to its recurring succession of dry
seasons. But we have very durable
soil, nevertheless, and even under the
natural changes of management conse-
quent upon the increase of dairying,
in place of grain and stock-farming, the
decline of its natural fertility has been
arrested to considerable degree. We
have very little land like the bluegrass
region, which will allow of a wasteful
stock-husbandry of fifty years before
beginning to fail. But there is no rea-
son whatever, save bad farming, which
will account for the impoverishment of
the pastures of our dairy farms.
There is hardly farm in New En-
gland on which there has not been
constant robbery of the pastures for
the benefit of the plow-land. This still
goes on, where it can go on. Where it
cannot, the decline of the pastures is
supplemented by the growth of green
forage. This must be increased if
winter dairying is to become the rule,
instead of the exception, for winter
dairying will not be very profitable if
carried on mostly with purchased feed.
The advantages of the silo, though eX-
aggerated, are too plain in this connec-
ton not to secure its general adoption
though on good farms not to the en-
tire exclusion of root-growing.
Butt is this all going to benefit the
turnout pastures? Will not all the ex-
ira manure made by the high feeding
requisite for winter dairying be needed
to grow the extra feed? Possibly at
first it will. But if the liquids as we'll
as the solids are thoroughly saved (and
no farmer who is farmer will buy one
cents worth of commercial manure
until this is accomplisheD, the high
feeding will give so much and so good
manure that share can be spared to
the nearer pasture land. AS to those
pastures which are not tillable, we
think they should be tried with lime,
ashes and plaster. A test of an acre
here and there will tell whether either
of these will pay. If it is finally de,
cided otherwise, we should say that
they had better be returned to forest as
fast as nature will do it. Tillable pas
ture land can always be restored by &
fraatp,ant oipnilar to that 1acor;baJ Nv