What is Not but Should be Known about Extending the Length of the Dairy Rotation by Using Fertilizers 1

The dairy rotation must be chiefly or exclusively to raise hay, corn, and pasture. The problem is, how successfully can the meadow be kept a meadow, the pasture a pasture, and the corn lot kept in corn , by the aid of commercial fertilizers from the three standpoints of quantity of production, quality of crops, and economy? Data from Missouri, Delaware, New York, Connecticut, Rothamsted, and Massachusetts on top dressing hay indicate that hay yields can be kept at a rathcr high level for many years, but that weeds , creep in and the yields finally decrease somewhat and very rapidly if no top dressing is applied. Clover and alfalfa are benefited by mineral top dressings. Evidence was presented to the effect that corn could be grown continuously with rather high yields, but here, as in the case of hay, the high cost of the fertilizer in maintaining the yield is a big factor. Experimental data from Connecticut were cited to prove that pastures are also helped by top dressing. Cheaper fertilizers offer much hope in this respect. Permanent meadows of grass hay do not supply the quality of forage needed. It may be wiser to shorten the rotation, grow more legumes, and improve the quality of the hay. “Our problem, then,” it was concluded, “is not how long our rotations can be made, but whether or not they can supply the quality of hay needed and whether or not long rotations will produce the feed crops needed at the lowest cost.”