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More Grass And Less Grain

More Grass And Less Grain image
Parent Issue
Day
14
Month
February
Year
1879
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

It is not alone to the heavens that we must look, in the majestic and unfaltering march of the planets, for lessons of the fultillment of the laws of the material world. All about us there are physical agencies just as exacting, and the violation of whiuh are as destructive to our interests, as chaos would be in the terrestrial world. When a farmer violates the physical laws of vegetable growth, his feet become poison to the soil, and barrenness and desolation follow his footsteps. The richest parts of the earth, which were the gardens of the Old World, by man's perverse system of husbandry have long since become a desert. Disobedience to God's laws, whether they be moral, physical or material, are followed as inrlexibly by expulsión from the garden as though it were specially enumerated in the deealogue. It is a matter of indifference, so f ar as the prosperity of the Northwest is concerned, whether the 300,000,000 of surplus corn and half that amount of wheat be shipped to our Atlantic States or to Europe. It is as certainly j ing the country as the steppings of time. I The earth is unlike the sun, which is never exhausted by giving. It is undying, undecaying, and in perennial glory fructifies and vivifles the earth, I and, like its Maker, changes not. We need not go to the Old World to illustrate the folly and wickedness of selling the cream of the earth to feed the hungry. Fifty-eight years ago I traveled through Western New York a d the Western Reserve in Ohio. On the newly underdrained lands of the former State, and the virgin soil of the i ; latter, every farmer vainly imagined be was getting rich by raising the finest wheat and exporting it at enormous cost. At that period those soils were capable of producing large crops, especiRlly of grass, an acre of which would pasture a cow or steer. The quality of that soil has departed with the annual shipments of wheat. Long since, however, the wiser and more prudent saw the inevitable result. They immediately commenced to bring it back to its original fertility by the use of commercial fertilizers, and the prudent accumulations and use of barn-yard and green manures. And this practice has had its partial success. But the largest jiortion of those beautiful sections of country under unwise management are still receding in productiveness. Lately a very reliable writer and close observer, of Ohio, jnforms us that now it takes five acres in the Reserve to pasture a cow or a steer. The same policy which has rendered almost barren the fairest portions of the earth in other places is as certainly being done in Iowa. Skimming the soil of Iowa of its cream by shipping away millions of bushels of unprofitable wheat, and covering our farms witla 10 per cent. mortgages, have already brought our peoplo to the door of bankruptcy. To change our policy, it is not necessary that our farmers should rush peil mell, like a herd of frightened sheep, into dairying, or any other particular branch of agriculture. There are thousands of ways the energies of our farmers might be directed profitably. Not one-third pasture enough is uow furnished to the 4,000,000 of hogsraised annually in the State. Too much grain is fed to them in summer for either health or profit. ïhere is not oiie-tenth of the earljcut and sweetly-cured hay now fed to neat cattle thatcould beprofitably done. Many of the idle hours in winter should bé spent in manipulating and preparing ! such feed for stock in warm quarters. More flesh, bone, muscle and fat can be put on in this way than by feeding raw corn, with stock standing in mud or snow, exposed to the Borean blasts. More steers should beraisedand fully ; prepared for niarket on our small farms, instead of being sold in a lean and lank condition to large stock feeders. For this purpose the small farms must be radically changed and improved from their present condition. And thisleads us to the main question of grass. The popular question is, what kind of grass seed should be sown for pastuYe and meadow? For pasture our experience, dearly learned, is to sow all kinds and varieties you can possibly obtain. Follow the lessons taught by nature. Truly in pasture "variety is the spice of life." Abundantly larger crops can be raised, greater variety of i food furnished, and diversity of grasses ': will almost certainly guarantee a suc cession of good pasture from early spring to mid-winter. As to the quantity of seed per acre, the best advice is, sow all the seed you have, and be careI ful that it is not spread too wide. But the field here widens, and our limited time forbidsus iudulging in our favorite ideas on this subject. Grass is King. In its direct money j value, and in all its collateral and indirect Vienefits, it is worth more to the world than all the cereal crops combined. lts direct is nothing in parison to lts indirect valuo in the mfluenee it has in preserving the fertility of our farms by its manurial wealth in all its forms. Without the modest graes which we tread under our feet, the earth wonld soou becomo a barren waste, uninhabitablo for man or beast. And we are prepared to say that no man can thrive on a farm - no farm can be self-supporting- where grass is wholly neglected or advantage is not taken of stock raised on other grass farms. It is supposed by many that only such soil as is not fit for eultivation in the cereals or roots should be devoted to grasa. This is a mistake. We can afford to take our best kous for the production of this erop, and this is the real plan of bringing them up to the highest point of fertility. It only pays to raise the best crops, and, with all the richness of our virgin soil, on our best farms we only attain to about half B erop in comparison with the farms that have been tilled for a thousand years in the Old World. And it will require only a few more decades at our present way of culti?ating to render our farms equal to the mullein fields of Virginia or the Carolinas. Our salvatioi: from such a result depends upon the nractical recognition of the old Belgian'proverb: "No grass, nö cattle ; no cattle, no manure ; no manure, no crops." A district of country like ours, which is capable of producing all the grasses, cereals and roots in prolific abundance, has within itself the elements of independence, as well as the sources of private and national wealth. It eaii live within itself, depending in a very limited degree upon other districts for the exchange of a few articles. On such a soil as ours the farmer has at hand the means to secure wlmtfivpr he desires; or, to apply the proverb just qnoteil, kfi bS corn, oittle and manure. Grass and stock husbamlry, in a country prolific of corn as ivell as grass, is the most independent branch of naaii's ocoupation on earth. And herein consist onr great advantages over any nation of the üld World. The preservation of the fertility of our soils, and consequently the increased production of the cereals, can only be profitably secured by grass . tensively. France, outeide of her vineardR, is poor in comparisou with England, Grermany or Holland. The soil of England or Germany naturally is not equal in fertility to that of Franoe, yet tbeir crops are nearly doublé per acre to tbat of the latter country. In Franee the manure of one acre of grass bas to be diffused over two and a half acres of grain, while in England one acre of grain receives the fertilizing producís of tbree acres of grass. England adopts nature's laws in her system of husbandry, while Franco is robbing the earth of its fertility and starving her half-fed peasants. An intelligent system of farmingmnst be adopted hcre. By a wise and thorough plan of stock and grain husbandry, there is no more limit to the capability of these rich prairie lands, that btretch away in ahnost endless perspective, than there is in the atoms that exist in the atmosphere, the waters of the ocean, or the rocks of the solid earth. We must have more grass. Not the eoarse, sour, useless grass of our sloughs, but sweet, nutritious grasses- grasses that make milk, bntter and cheese. Grasses which make the higher order of beef and mutton. Grasses which will develop the highest type of that noblest j of animáis, next to man, the horse. j Grasses which will produce that animal j which is worshiped more than the bird of liberty - the hog.

Article

Subjects
Old News
Michigan Argus