The Savannah morning news., 1903-04-06
GARDEN
AND HOUSEHOLD

By S. A. COOK.
Our Grasses and Clovers-That Will
Help to Make Is Rich some Day.

Our Grasses and CIOvers-That Will
Help to Make Is Rich some Day.
Great. indeed, are the possibilities of
stock-growing in the South. What
country in the world is more blessed
with all the essentials to success? A
climate altogether suitable to the
purpose. A score or more of the most
nutritious and adaptable grasses and
olovers to be found anywhere-plenty
of good water. The way is certainly
clear. All we need now is to recog-
nize and value our opportunity. If
it had not been demonstrated time
and again that it is true one might
hesitate to assert without qualifica-
ton that the Southern farmer or
stockman can raise as fine horse, as
fine a mule, or steer, or mich COW, as
fine a hog, or sheep, or Angora goat
as can be raised anywhere in the
world. a Georgia raised horse has
no superior for stamina and other
qualities that recommend it.
While we do not need more than
three of four different plants to make
the necessary pastures and meadows
for stock growing, we have a score or
more that we can make use of ac-
cording to individual preference.
What a list of royal plants for the
purpose The very naming of them is
a pleasure. Let us enumerate them:
Bermuda grass, known distinctvely III
India as "Gods-grass," once planted
ge,l,fv
most palatabe pasture in Middle
Georgia from the middle of April I'M
til November and sometimes, as late
as December. In the whole list of
grazing or meadow plants there is no
other more palatable or more nutri-
tious An hundred acres we'll covered
with this grass and brought to its
highest development should be worth
intrinsically $4,000 in any county IN
Georgia, and the day is not far off
when it will be. With the proper
stock to Craze it it would return more
than % per cent on the investment
that is, each acre would produce $25
worth of beef or other stock per year
Another perennial plant that will be
of great value to the coming stock
grower is lucern or alfalfa, known also
as French clover. 1t is strange that
this valuable plant has made so little
progress in the esteem of Southern
farmers 1t is generally commended
more as a meadow plant than for
pasture. 1t is easily injured by in
judicious grazing, but there is no rea-
son why it should not be pastured by
sheep and calves and any light ami
mails under certain precautions. If
grazed only when the soil is dry and
when the lucern is well grown any
IL -
it for an hour or two during the day.
Cattle should not be allowed to range
Indefinitely in such a pasture. They
should be confined to it just long
enough to get a fill and then be taken
off Trampling steadily over it when
the soil is very wet will damage any
kind of pasture.
The best value is gotten from lucern
when made into hay or used for soil
ing-that is, cut and carried green to
stock in their stables. After the sec
ond year lucern will allow of its first
cutting as early as April l in Middle
Georgia and according to the quality
of the soil permits of being cut from
to times between that and Christ
mas. A certain garden, one acre
square, that we know of is laid off
into walks. The 700 yards of walks
is bordered with lucern and it is Won
derful the amount of green forage Sc
cured to the COW from this 700 lineal
yards of this seemingly never-resting
plant. An acre of it under high Gull
ture and close to the barn would sup
ply enough food, green and dry, to
keep milch COW through the whole
year. 1t is as good food for the
horse as need be had, being as hay al
most as nutritious as oats.
Another perennial grass of great
value to the South is orchard grass.
When properly managed it makes a
pasture almost through the entire
winter 1t and lucern can be sown
together to very great advantage, es-
pecially when good clay loan can be
used for the purpose.
Meadow oat grass is another desir-
able grass So is Hull's grass, a splen-
did grass for wet land or such as is
subject to periodical overnows. An
other grass of unqueStionable value to
the Southern farmer is Johnson grass
"a grass concerning which sentiment
is greatly divided, to be sure. In its
proper place it is a treasure to the
cattle and hog grower, yielding
Vaster amount of forage than any
other known grass. In anyways out
OF place ii becomes as perniciOus as
the meanest weed known. Once well
set on moist rich soil it is almost. if
not absolutely, indestructible. 1t is
true grass with cane-like roots that
take such complete possession of the
soil it is impossible in any reasonable
number of years to rid the soil of
them. 1t can be only done by per-
sistent pasturing with hogs. Accord
ing to circumstances, therefore, it is
a great pest or a great blessing
conflict of good and bad qualities that
hardly any other plant exhibits. For
certain economic purpose the best
of the good" as a plant not desired
the worst of the bad" Some plants
are altogether bad-Canada thistle or
nut-grass, for instance; but very few
are either very good or very bad like
johnson grass. Its abstract value
will always be a subject of contro-
versy. Only the practical utilizer will
be likely to be its champion.
Sugar Cane.
1t is more than likely that there
will be an increased demand for sugar
cane for planting purposes another
year We would advise our readers to
plant as much as possible this season