The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1891-03-28
PAsruRlNe WHEAT
Tho Experience of KP.nsas Fnrmo
Proves THAT It 9nYa.


The Experience of Kansas Farmer
Proves That IL Pays.
In regard to pasturing wheat to de.
stroy the egg of the fly and the value of
wheat for winter grozing / may say
that for the past three or four years
there has been more or less fly in the
early-sown wheat, and u great many
farmers claim that pasturing destroys
the egg, and think there can be no
question but what close pasturing will
at least destroy enough of the eggs so
there will be no serious damage from the
fly. Last fall there was more fly in the
wheat than ever before; they were in
the early and late sown both. With
feed high and scarce and fearing dam
age from the fly, most of the farmers
concluded to pasture their wheat, some
turning off when the ground was wet
and others let their stock run, wet or
dry; and l think this season will an
swer the question as to whether you
can destroy the egg of the fly by pastur-
ing.
1t has been the practice of some of
our farmers to pasture their wheat
more or less every season, and most of
them claim that the wheat they pasture
makes better yield than that not
pastured. / have heard only one man
claim that he damaged his wheat one
| season by pasturing.
lfit can be pastured with little or no
damage it is a matter of the greatest
| Importance to the farmer who is rails
| ing wheat and stock, because there is
no grazing, winter or summer, that puts
flesh on little, big, young and old as fast
as wheat pasture has in this country
this season. Late calves that were thin
in flesh when taken off the cows in the
last of October are fat and sleek now.
Cows milk as well as in June on the
best of clover and timothy.
This is the first season 1 have ever
pastured my wheat. 4 few years ago, and
for two or three years until 1 sowed the
field to clover, l used a atwenty-five-acre
| field for a rye pasture and would turn
on as soon in the fall as the rye was big
enough, and would let the stock run
hogs and calves-until it would begin
to joint, and would harvest from thirty
to thirty-five bushels per acre; so it
certainly did not damage the rye much
and 1T would mature as early as rye not
grazed. l am pasturing a one-hundred-
acre field. Thirty head of calves were
turned on the last of October; later four
cows, ten yearling steers, and four head
of horses, and they cannot keep it down;
it grows nearly as fast as they Craze it
off, and it will turn them over to the
tame-grass pasture in good beef form.
think the wheat ought to be thick
on the ground and have a good fall
growth, and it will not tramp under
like thin wheat would. 1 will give you
one circumstance that would seem to be
conclusive on the ''tramping question: -
A herd of three hundred head of big
cattle got into small wheat field at
night on two different occasions, and
both the owner of the cattle and of the
wheat considered the wheat about
ruined and agreed to wait until it was
threshed and what it lacked of making
as much as the average yield for the
past five years would be the measure
of damages. The wheat made a yield
of thirty-five bushels per acre-the best
crop ever raised on the field.-T. O..
Ford, in Breeders Gazette.