The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., 1910-02-19

NM farmers asking for methods for making q
-A9 permanent pasture in the South and wha,
grasses TO SOW. | usually advise starting with
orchard grass and red,op with Kentucky blue
grass on the rcd clay upland the bluegrass TO
form the final sod. OF course. in mos, places the
Bermuda will finally creep In. but tho bluegrass
can be maintained. am sure. IL tho pasture has
tho proper attention. Simply loft aa pasture
and no further attention given. Il is certain that
the field will finally be covered with hroom.cdgc
You canno, maintain a good pasture constantly
grazed by young stock that are taking the phos-
phate out of the land in tho formation OF their
bony syHtcm. and crpoc; the soil TO maintain Its
productivencas. BroomHodgo In natures means in
the South for curing mans waste. and wo would
have bad a bowling wilderness but for the broom
sedgo and tho pine tree. nat pasture be
maintained in tho South and hroomsedEe kept
out IL the pasture ia treated properly.
When the A. NJ. College started nj Ra-
leigh. n. C. wo had one building on n sght eicva-
ton surrounded by a waste OF brlckhats and small
rocks on aa poor a piece of land could be found
in the neighborhood. Tho land was cleaned up
and deeply broken and cowpcAn sown and turned
under the following fall and the land prepared
and aown TO bluegrass and rye grass for a lawn
and parade ground Every ono there knows tha,
beautiful lawn made. ono day a man
from Ohio was visiting the college in a trip LOOK
inE for land. and standing on tho lawn he said
TO me: Il have always heard that you could not
grow grass In the South. but this looks like yon
could" And we certainly can IL wc givo II proper
attention. At the old experiment, farm NJ Ra-
leigh. now the poultry department of the station
there In on tho top of bare unahadcd hill a sod
over twenty years old that is IA strong and
springy any in Kentucky: and Just such a sod
can be maintained any of tho red clay hills OF
the South II cared for.
Up In Maryland. not many miiom from the city
OF Baltimore. there IL a section of rough hills that
were notoriously poor many years ago. The own
orB went into the grazing OF cattle. getting thin
cattle from Tho Weai In spring and putting them
on The grass and selling TO tho butchers in tho
fall. They only used two-year steers with their
bony system we'll formed. and these did no, ex-
hanst the land ms calves and younger cattle
would. The land carried few at nrat hut every
spring the sod was dressed over with 400 hounds
OF raw bone meal per acre. and eyery year tho
SOD grew denser. The land has been unbroken
Tor more than nifty years. and to-day feeds more
cattle by several times over than IL did nj nrsf
growing such a mat OF graas IN nj more In trodden
down than In eaten.
Now. do not believe that there is nm old red
gaiied hill In the South that could not be main
.hihed In SOD and improved in the same way aud
the proomsedge kept out by the ranker growth
Oh the better grasses Especially II once In six
or seven years dressing OF lime IL brushed in
with a smoothing harrow. and weeaa and rank
tufts OF grass from the droppinga are mown on
occhsionaiiy. You cannot eat your oake and keen
IL 100. and this iR true OF n permanent pasture
iou must feed the sod to keen IL imnrovIng
dressed win bone dust annually and lined once
III Blk or seven years we can maintain a sod on
clay soil In tho South. On the lighter sandy soiIa
OF the coast region Bermuda and Texas bluerrass
can be maintained in the same way. the one for
summer and the other for winter.