The Prince George's enquirer and southern Maryland advertiser. (Upper Marlborough, Md.) 1882-1925, 1897-03-05
What Grasses to Grow in Central
and Southern Maryland for
Hay and Pasture; How
and When to Plant
Them.

BY JARED G. SMITH, ASSISTANT AGROs-
ToLoGIsT, U. 5. AGRICULTURAL
DEPARTMENT.
Read at the Joint Meeting of the Vans
vile Farmers and PatuXent Planters
Clubs, held at the home of Col. W. S.
Powell, at Annapolis Junction, February
22nd, 1897
I doubt whether many Of the gentle
m IN here this afternoon realize the vast
commercial importance OF the meadows
and pasture lands of Mary land as re-
CARDS either the amount of invested
capital which they represent, or as to
the money value of their products.
The estimated taxable value of the
$1,000 farm animals of this State for
1896 was upwards Of 100000, re-
quiring for their maintenance for one
year million and half tons OF all
classes of forage and feeding stuffs.
The total value of farm animals and { f
the forage which they required for that
one years support was more than
thirty eight million dollars. Yet Mary,
land is not considered a great cattle
State, neither is she foremost among
her sister States in the amount of wool
or dairy products or pork products
from the broad acres other rolling hills
and fertile valleys. OF this million
and half tons yearly consumed in
feeding Maryland's horses, cattle, milch
COWS, sheep and hogs, it is safe to say
that more than one half is fed us hay,
stover, ensilage, and the green heritage
from the pastures, and that probably
less than one half comes in the form of
condensed foods-grain, bran, milling
wastes, oil-cake, peanut-meal and cot
tonseed- meal. 1t would be safer to say
that the ratio is one-third condensed
foods and two-thirds hay, soiling crops,
ensilage, stover and pasturage. These
figures are not theoretical ones. They
are based upon facts. A milch COW of
1000 pounds live weight consumes a
tons of dry fodder to keep her one year
Every sheep Oh fifty pounds live weight
eats from $50 to 4lO lbs. of dry matter
in one year. Every thousand pounds
Of live pork requires from 4.3 to 7.6
tons; every thousand pounds of live
horse flesh requires from 3.S to A
tons to produce it. Such being the
demand of our live stock, how shall We
produce. the necessary supplies? The
problem of why and how to grow the
cultivated grasses and clovers becomes.
as you see, very important one com
mercially.
But aside from the direct benefits
derived from hay meadow or pas
ture, considering only the forage value,
there are excellent reasons why there
should be large tract of grass land
on every mans farm.
The grasses are the most abundant
of all the green things that cover the
earth. Other tribes and other orders
of towering plants far exceed them in
the number Of species, in the great and
varied abundance of forms, but
wherever you go it is the living carpet
of the grasses that fills the fields and
woodlands and meadows with their
vast armies of individual plants. The
grasses are the great soil-builders
They are the agents that build up fer
tile beds of loam Oh every sterile spot
and make it tit for the plow and the
reaper. Who does not know that great
barrenness is meant when the express
sion is used "Why, grass wouldn't grow
on that spot!' But if we patiently
cover the barren fields with living
green, and wait until the grasses have
remade the soil and revivificd it, what
field is more fertile, what acre Yields a
larger crop! There is more "lite" in a
Fl cid of turned and rotted turf than in
an equal area Of long-cropped soil
abundantly supplied with the best of
commercial fertilizers, but lacking that
most valuable of all fertilizers, the h"-
mus which the thick grass turf has sup
piled. Witness in support of this, the
large demand and the high price paid
for turf in the neighborhood Of each
of our great cities, by florists and gar
deners for supplying earth for their
forcing frames. The richest soils in
the United States, the black prairie
lands of the West that will yield un-
varying crops for twenty yecrs, or the
broad fertile alluvial valleys wherever
you find them, are distinctively the
product of myriad crops of grasses
that have grown and decayed upon
them for thousands of generations.
Turf is very valuable fiXer of nitro-
gen. 1t is one of the best sources of
humus, and the cheapest fertilizer.
The best systems of rotation in mod
ern agriculture are those which include
grass in their series. You may follow
wheat with potatoes, corn and tobacco,
and may add each year sufficient phos-
plate, potash and lime to replace the
amount Of mineral elements removed
by your money crop, but unless you
replace the organic matter, or humus,
you will find that each year the abund-