LET THE PASTURE GET UP.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 390, 26 August 1911, Page 3

LET THE PASTURE GET UP.

The one rea _ on why soiling is recommended is not because more stock can be kept. By leaving a crop until it has reached full development, and then cutting and feeding it, more than twice the fodder is produced from a given area that pasturing would giveThere are two reasons why this is th> case. The trampling of the crop by the stock, when -tllowed to roam over a field destroys some of it outright, injured the tender plant-crowns, and. it' the weather is at all wet, so innacts the ground that it cannot yield its fulness. And again plants that are bitten oft repeatedh' are dwarfed. A familiar instance of this latter ell'set is seen in the case of a hedge kept well trimmed. When this is done as it ought to be, not oniy is growth if stem and twig kept within bounds, but rot development is checked, also The oftener a hedge is trimmed, the more pronounced is the effect above and below ground. In view of these well-known facts, what more effective method o'f lessening the yield from pasture could be devised than that which is too commonly practiced? Stock are turned out to graze as soon, almost, as green blade-5 appear. We all well known what will happen to that pasture field. It, will be cropped bare from the start. The wretched stock will almost have to dig for a living; in fact, almost dies in the effort to live. There being nothing to shade the earth, the field will be burned brown at the first drought. And when the season is over, not half the flesh or milk will have been produced that the owner might have received and more judgment been used in the treatment of its field.

It is truly a great relief to have done with feeding stock and cleaning stables when the first smothery heat comes upon us, but scarcely any course is more profitable than to stand it a while longer, and let the grass get a good top. Some say that every week's delay in turning stock out to grass lengthens the pasturing season two weeks in the fall. If so, the investment is good; it returns 100 per cent. Nor is the effect on the stock good, for the first growth of grass, being watery and immature, is wanting in nourishment; but once animals get a taste of it, they do not realish the dry fodder in the stables, and frequently fall away in flesh for want of sufficient food. In case of freshlycalved cows giving milk this is a still greater hardship, from the ill-effects of which they will be some time in recovering. What they need at this season is not poorer feeding, but bet ter.— "Canadian Farmers' Advocate. "