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Show Nation's Grasslands Stand For Security in Agriculture By BAUKIIAGE Newt Analyst and Commentator. WASHINGTON. "The grasslands, hay lands and forested range lands of the entire United States cover more than a bil-! lion acres, nearly 60 per cent of the total land area. They furnish fur-nish about half of the feed for all the livestock." That statement is quoted from the new AGRICULTURE YEAR BOOK titled "Grass," last copies of which now are being delivered to congressmen congress-men for their constituents. Purpose of this book is to contribute to the lore and practice of the American farmer so he may help to attain "permanency in agriculture." mis permanency is oDiainaoie,' says P. V. Cardon, in the opening chapter of this I : splendid 900- I I page book, by it. t means of "an I J1 1 8riculture that ' ' , JiMWi is stable and se- ISnlr cure farm I . ".'.'a i r and farmers, I 'iM fl r consistent in Hff' prices and carn- u H al'' '"fi; nn ericui-$t$&, ericui-$t$&, ture ""'t ean Mt&tZ: satisfy tndef-I tndef-I V X'"a-J Initely all our rv;' A needs of (oodi fibre and shelter BAl'KHAGE in keeping with the living standards we set. Everybody Every-body has a stake in a permanent agriculture." Grassland Is, according to the many experts who have contributed contribut-ed to tli is volume, the foundation of security in agriculture. Grasslands, by the sheer force of their need, have increased from an original 700 million acres to the present billion. Believers in grass expect that acreage to be Increased, In-creased, and I have no doubt that tli is book will help. Grass means to these students stu-dents of the Gramlncae family, fam-ily, wheat, corn, rice, sugarcane, sugar-cane, sorghum, millet, barley, oats, many of the sod crops which provide forage or pas turage and the associated legumes, leg-umes, clover, Icspcdezas, alfalfa al-falfa and others. The trend toward grassland agriculture ag-riculture In America existed for some 10 years but was interrupted for intensive cultivation during the war. Now it. is Increasing again, according to Cardon who has been engaged in agricultural research since 1910. But he points out that grassland's agriculture supplements supple-ments rather than replaces other farm production for example, livestock production, with which It Is Inseparably linked. "Grassland agriculture," be says, "under good management may equal or increase the production produc-tion of digestible nutrients, reduce materially tha labor needed to grow them and lower the cost of supplying protein necessary to nourish animals." There are many Interesting and widely varying chapters, progressing progress-ing from the general to the more specific. The editor, Alfred Steff-erud, Steff-erud, has summarized the book at separated Into four parts. The first is an examination of grass at it applies to people anywhere with the emphasis on livestock and soils and conservation. Forage for livestock, live-stock, the use and value of pastures, pas-tures, grass and rotations, the range, as a major resource and , - . V ; y f fijf ) if f 1 if, - - r-fi-iM ' ' 1 '' ' ' Technicians selecting male buffalo graa to secure pollen for breeding to Improve atralna at the buffalo grass nursery at Woodward, Okla. grass "tor happier living" on the playing fields, lawns, highway shoulders and airfields. Other parts of the book are devoted de-voted to the uses, nature and Identification Iden-tification of various grasses and finally there are detailed charts, tables, recommendations for seed-tngs seed-tngs and mixtures. Scope of the topics Is wide, for the subject Involves not only the varying conditions of oil and climate, but also social so-cial conditions affecting the tenure ten-ure of land and the lives of the people, along with shifts In national na-tional policies and political trends. There is no more striking example ex-ample of how these purely external conditions affect the farmer than In England today, where a com-plete com-plete change In that country's agriculture ag-riculture was brought about during dur-ing the war and continued since. The great parks, private estates, preserves and forests have been broken tip under pressure to raise food which formerly was Imported. Import-ed. The general trends in America have been less obstructed by external exter-nal influences. "Grass" Is a bonk for city-man city-man as well as farmer, and among the vast compilation of data resulting from experiment, record and research, there are even a few pages given to a panegyric whose poetic fervor makes up for what may he a lack of purely scientific background. back-ground. I can't help quoting from the ar tide, "In Praise of Blue Grass," by Juhn James Ingalls who was senator from Kansas from 1873 to 1891. It is reprinted from the Kansas Kan-sas magazine in which it appeared in 1H72, and has been widely quoted ever since. After describing the beauties of a ride through his "primeval winter win-ter in Kansas," Ingalls describes n T7KP Close up showing method of pollinating female buffalo grass flower with pollen from selected male strain. his descent Into a valley where, he says, was created "he strange spectacle of June In January," peculiar to his native state. . "A sudden distent into the sheltered shel-tered valley," be writes, "revealed an unexpected crescent of dazzling verdure, ver-dure, glittering lite a meatlow in early ipring, unreal as an im nutation, surprising sur-prising as the sea to the soldiers 0 Zenophon as they stood upon the shore and shouted 'Ybalatta!' It was Blue Grass, unknown in Eden, the final triumph of nature, reserved to compensate ber favortie of spring in the new Paradise of Kansas for the lost of the old upon the banks 0 the Tigris and Euphrates.'' h Truman Another Boy on Burning Deck? It may be Just as well that Washington Wash-ington has not only its proverbially-unbearable proverbially-unbearable weather, but that it has a political campaign as well to take its mind off more serious troubles. It started out as a rather dull campaign with the Republicans positive of victory and the Democrats Demo-crats showing an overweening willingness will-ingness to get used to the idea of looking for another Job. But ever aince Harry Truman's Tru-man's peppy pee eh at the Democratlo convention, yon frequently fre-quently run Into a Democrat who actually thinks his party hat a chance In November. One loyal adherent to the party of Jackson and Jefferson approached me with a theory that Truman had very good chance of winning on the psychological basis. "You know," he said to me. "deep down in the subconscious of every American is a boy-on-the-burning deck complex." . , , the boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but him had fled; The flame that lit the battle's wreck, Shone round bim o'er the dead. I didn't get It at first, but th explanation Is simple and not Illogical. Il-logical. There probably never hai been a more outstanding example of a one-man show than Harry Truman' t performance at tht Democratic convention. My friend went on: "Moat Americans Ameri-cans at one time or another have pictured themselves as rising to the occasion, alone and unsupported, taking on all comers, swinging to the right and left regardless of the odds, holding the fort or storming the redoubt or saving the child whence all but him had fled." "He went on to say: "Americana "Ameri-cana see this spunky little fighter fight-er who wears a confident smile when most of his colleagaes have fares aa long as a new-look new-look skirt, and they Imagine themselves In his place. "As any schoolboy who hai studied psychiatry knows, there will be a transference displacing tht affect from one person to another motivated by the unconscious Iden tiflcalion of the vow with the boy on the burning deck and from tht boy on the burning deck to tht Democratic candidate." Qulen sabe? |