AMERICAN EXPERIMENT

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXIV, Issue 95, 5 April 1934, Page 9

AMERICAN EXPERIMENT

Production Limitation MORE GRASSLAND FARMING In their policy of limiting production, the United States Department of Agriculture earns at taking millions of acres out of cultivation. These are the poorer lands which have never given high enough yields to make it worth while to cultivate them any longer. Portions may be used for grazing, and others will be allowed to revert to forest. On the better farms, however, the plan is to limit the acreage of wheat and to cut down the number of hogs. Such a restriction will give an opportunity for the more efficient farmers to keep up, or even increase, their incomes. In recognition of more intensive farming methods, the Bureau of Dairying recommends the greater use of pasture for cows and also the feeding of more legume hay and less grain in winter. This method may not be applicable to herds that are producing more than 450 pounds of fat a cow a year, but is quite possible with herds that are producing only 200 to 300 pounds of fat a cow a year. The scheme rests upon the fact that one ean produce more feed units an acre, and at less labour cost, in the form of legume hay (especially lucerne), than in the form of grain, and thus obtain more milk an acre oi ground devoted to dairying on a given farm, and secure it at less cost. Thus an acre of ground producing three tons of lucerno hay yields 3006 pounds of digestible nutrients, while an acre of corn, producing 50 bushels, yields

only 537 pounds of digestible nutrients. Even if a 50-bushel crop of corn were harvested and produced ten tons of silage an acre, it would yield only 2466 pounds of digestible nutrients assuming 10 per cent, loss of nutrients from fermentation in the silo. This difference in the productive power of these two crops is much greater tnati farmers generally realise. It partially explains the great feeding value to dairy cattle of lucerne hay.