The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-05-18
Helping out the Pastures. How Shall
Ii be DOnel

In many parts of the country good
pastures are thing of the past. The
feed may be fairly good for a few weeks
in May, June and possibly up to the
middle of July, then there ia shrink
age of the milk, and generally great
loss to the dairyman. There are three
ways of meeting this shortage. The
first is to improve the pastures, the
second is to grow soiling crops, and
the third is to have a summer silo. On
some farms all three of these methods
can be combined, and each farmer must
decide for himself what he will do.
He certainly cannot afford to do moth.
ing, he must suffer great loss if
does not provide his cows with plenty
of feed all summer, but how to do this
is for each one to decide. Let us look
at the three ways of helping out the
pastures.
First, as to the pastures themselves,
there are some which by small outlay
could be made very much more produc-
tive. Any land which can be plowed can
be made better by the use of chemicals
and leguminous plants. Most old pas
lures need potash, and this can be sup
piled in ashes, kainite, and muriate of
potash. These are best applied in the
fall or early spring A crop which will
bring more nitrogen into the soil should
be grown. 1t is of no use to pillow up a
pasture, SOW it TO some exhausting
crop, remove it and then expect the
land to get richer. Better SOW peas and
oats early, say after fall blowing and
the wintering of the upturned soil.
Then when the crop gets fair growth,
pillow it under, and SOW barley and peas.
These can grow till late fall and then
be turned under, and the turning I'M
der of two such crops in one year would
add large quantity of humus to the soil.
How long piece of pasture land
should be kept up must depend entirely
upon circumstances. We make these
suggestions to those who have run
down pastures which can be plowed,
and we must say that it does seem as
though any land which can be plowed
can be brought up by green crops and
tillage, together with the application of
potash and phosphoric acid, the latter in
the shape of acid phosphate. But there
are lots of things which look easy on
paper which are not so easy when it
comes to the actual working out of the
problem. The writer for long time
owned a pasture in northern Vermont,
but unfortunately it was of the unplow-
able kind and had to be left to its nat
tural fate.
AS to soiling crops we can speak
from experience, and can say that peas
and oats sowed as early as the groun
can be worked will be large enough TO
cut and feed to stock in from ten 10
twelve weeks, or when they are just
getting out of bloom. If not wanted for
green forage they can be cured for hay,
and if got in in good shape, are nearly
equal to clover. AS to the proportions,
bushel and half of each is a good
combination. Many others can be made
as peas and barley, to which rye can
be added, but it should be kept in mind
that the best crops for soiling are those
which belong to the legumes, that is
the bean and pea family. If COW peas
and crimson clover can only be grown
in the north, they will make a great
addition to both the heterogeneous soil
ing crops and the nitrogen gathering
plants for green manuring. But it
must be horne in mind that land is
often harmed for long time by plow-
ing under too heavy crops of COW peas
and the like. 1t is really found in &C.
tual practice to be better to let such q
crop lie on the top of the ground and
decay, though theoretically the prac-
tice seems to be wasteful one.