The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-10-26
f. w. Moseley.
The Proper management of Pastures


The Farmers Review says: 1--WE
doubt if any other countryman is so
given to overstocking his pastures as
is the American. So long has this been
the practice that some farmers do not
seem to know what a good pasture is.
One man. proud of his pasture, took
the writer out to see it, Something
fine was expected, but what was ac-
tually revealed was a great expanse
of rolling land covering over a hun
dred acres, on which a herd of about
twenty Jerseys were having a hard
time to make a living. 1t was the
last of May and the grass then had
been fed down close. One could not
but help wondering what this pasture
would be two months LATER The pas
ture was really pretty to look at, for
it was rolling land, with here and there
a clump of trees for shade. AS a land
was all wrong. The owner was alto
gether too we'll satisfied with pastur-
ing his cows on landscape.
The experiment stations are doing
a good deal to reverse this practice
At the North Carolina Experiment
Station they are showing how to keep
up pasture and the kind of a field a
is always several inches high, and
when one pasture begins to get short
the animals are turned into another till
the first has recovered. A count has
been kept of the number of days pas
turage yielded by each acre, and the
results are remarkable. AS the writer
remembers it. each acre gave during
the season an aggregate of over 500
days pasturage for one COW. That
nnn1d he dana hHy inn
At the Missouri Experiment Station
the experimenters are showing what
can be done with a blue grass pasture
that is not overstocked. II will do any
farmer good to go and see that pas
ture. In June the blue grass stands
over two feet high and even in Sep
TENDER it stands over a foot high after
having been hard pastured during the
season. If all the farmers of Mis-
souri, would take heed to what is go
ing on in the blue grass pasture at
Columbia it would make them rich.
Yet it is reported that the Missouri
stockmen and dairymen claim that
blue grass pastures are a failure. Prof.
Waters told the writer that the great
cause of the failure Of Missouri blue
grass pastures is overstocking
Eating all the grass down to the
ground is the surest way to reduce the
value of any pasture, whether of wild
or tame grasses. If the grass is kept
down during the entire season it af-
fects very disadvantageously the roots,
which are not able to develop new
feeders. The root of any plant does
not go on forever feeding through the
same orifices. New root hairs are be-
ing constantly developed on new root
let's. These have their development
only from the part of the plant above
ground. There all the material for the
cells is elaborated If the top part is
kept down part of the root ultimate
ly dies and new material is not at hand
for the creation of new feeders. The
roots feed more and more from a shall
lower laver of soil and in time the
plants have such a light hold on the
soil that COWS will pull up the whole
plant in trying to get bite. Moreover
this shallow rooted sod is easily
tramped into the mud during wet
weather, while a deeply rooted sod
would sustain no injury. The deeply
rooted sod is what is desired, and it
can be obtained only by giving each
pasture what stock II can easily
carry.