Ottumwa tri-weekly courier., 1908-04-25
TURNING STOCK ON PASTURE
Effect Of New Grass Is Some
what Relaxing for Time,
but Will Soon Disappear.

When spring is thoroughly in the
country will be full of rich grass and
nearly all the stock of the farm will be
doing we'll on it. Its effect is some-
what relaxing for time, but such re-
laNatlon must not be classified with
that which in delicate animals is
caused by indigestion-for instance, a
cali badly weaned, i'll nurtured in
It's infancy, during which period the
constitution is made or marred. Then
as yearling or 2-year-old the steer
mas become so debilitated that he cam
not digest the ordinary food, and the
excavations are too liquid for robust
ness and habitual purging is the un-
happy portion of such an Improbable
animal, which remains unthrifty for
life.
The healthy yearling or 2-year-old
bullock may, just when the grass is
young and flashy, be purged as much,
but he will rapidly gain flesh and as
the grass becomes older and harder
the purging will gradually disappear.
On such pastures where the grass is
exceptionally rich no one who thor
oushly knows his business will put
any stock except superior full-grown
bullocks, because the grass is rich
enough to fatten them, making them
third at the Least more valuable, and
| then he has the use of the grass when
the bullocks are grown for other stock
OF cours Sc there are few farmers who
have pasture that will fatten bullocks
without artificial assistance, and those
who have such a luxury should not
debilitate it by moving, but rather
build it up by the best of farmyard
manures.
cannot say I am an advocate of
using light artificial manures for pas
lures but grass can be indirectly fed
by carting green food to the stock and
linseed cake and other purchased foods.
The land from which any of these
green crops are taken must be COM
pensated or the grain crops will be
light and Improbable.
If one has rich, alluvial meadows no
manure is required and such land is
worth any reasonable price. In rec
ognizing the signs of good land, there
is tale of a blind farmer helping his
son into business, and in walking over
farm the old gentleman inquired for
tall thistle of an old tree type to
which he might tie his horse.
Here IS one feet high said his
5esiuS' 1AiSA, icHtleu llS DllHQ IdIIn-
er, Il VIII take the farm
He we'll knew that though small, fiat
breeds of thistles grow on the poorest
soils, the tall, large types grow only on
land good enough to grow any crop.
Horses are often objected to on grass
land because they are supposed to cut
1t up when galloping, but on sound
soils | do not see that difference, and
men who thoroughly understand horses
cam obtain more profit from them than
from any other animal bred for the
table,
Horses will not sleep in field novels,
perhaps because an ancient instinct or
inherited habit still leaves them in fear
OF the large carnivora, SO terrible to
their early ancestors in the worldwide
forests; and, further, the horse likes
pure air, and the air in the never
cleansed hovel is as fusty as sepul-
cher, If not as foul as a cesspool
IT ponds were cleaned at the proper
season there ought TO be a good stor-
age for water, and farmers need not
mind little muddiness if the mouth
OF the pond admits of convenient ap-
proach.
No one need fear a little earthly
matter with the water, as the stomach
is not so delicate as to be in the least
damaged thereby. I have tried to give
pure water, but have never known mis-
chief from simply muddy water.