The Lexington advertiser. [volume] (Lexington, Miss.) 1904-1985, 1946-05-09

lime, none is applied. He plants his
oats in September and fertilizes
them at that time with 400 pounds
of nitrate fertilizer and 400 pounds
of is percent phosphate. Wild win.
growth, which means the seed fall
on the surface of the ground, which
is unbroken. This procedure of keep
ing a stand has been going on for
several years and they continue a
good stand from year to year.
A most interesting feature of this
grazing program is the fact that
johnson grass seed are purchased
from Texas and sown at the rate of
20 pounds per acre following the oat
crop. These grasses are used for
grazing and for hay. 1t is cut from
TWO to three times per year and
produces from 2 to pa tons of hay
per acre. Some time this crop is left
uncut for winter grazing in its dry,
dead stage.
! MIR. Baker showed us two other
! pastures, one of which had not been
| treated with minerals and had never
Deen seeded to grasses ana clover.
inns plot produces 30 pounds of
beef per acre per year while an adj
joining plot treated with five tons
of barnyard manure and 400 pounds
of l6 percent phosphate, produces
$50 pounds of beef This pasture was
treated with the tons of barnyard
manure one year before phosphate
was added and it produced only 80
pounds of beef per acre. In other
words, the phosphate in addition to
the manure increased the milk pro-
duction Alb pounds per acre, more
that the manure alone. Had the
phosphate been applied without the
manure. the yield of beef per acre
would have been much less than
450 pounds, stated Mr.. Baker.
A herd of beef cattle which had
received IL pounds of Johnson grass
hay per day through January, Feb
ruary and March, were shown to US.
These cattle had been grazed in the
winter on wild winter peas and were
in excellent flesh. The director told
| 40 tAA1t Al1oSt Va tllCSC NOWo WC1G ldt
enough in the latter part of March
to have gone to market for slaugh-
ter.
In summarizing the work studied
at this Alabama station, we would
say that the use of minerals on pas
ture lands was absolutely essential
to the building of good pasture
The good pastures growing legumes
such as wild winter peas, white
Dutch clover and black Medic with
oats and johnson grass are neces-
sary to profitable production of live
stock. Barns are not essential fol
housing beef cattle in the winter
They do better in the open and car
be wintered on less amount of hay
than would be necessary to bed
them down in barn. Milk cows are
sheltered during bad weather in the
winter. These cows were housed
possibly a dozen nights the past
winter, the rest of the time they
were in the open the same as the
beef cattle.
One OF the biggest useless ex-
pense farmers of Mississippi under
go every year is the purchase of low
analysis fertilizer. A popular and
standard mixed fertilizer put on the
market every year is 5-10-5, 20
percent fertilizer and 80 percent
lime. ct was dirt or intert matter
until Mississippi passed law re-
curing fertilizer mixing plants to
use lime as a filler.) Now, one of
the greatest needs we have is
another law prohibiting the use of
more than SO percent lime filler),
leaving so percent for fertilizer.
Approximately 200 thousand tons
of mixed fertilizers were used by
Mississippi farmers from July l,
1914, to July l, 1945. If the same
fertilizing elements had been put