VI. PASTURE PLANTS

"Thou crownest the year with thy goodness; and thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness: and the little hills rejoice on every side.

The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing."

-A Psalm of David (Psalm 65:11-13).

Before there were tilled fields, there were green pastures. The grazing animals made them. They cropped the tall vegetation and trampled the succulent herbage, and pasture grasses sprang up and flourished in their stead. Wherever there were pieces of level ground frequented by wild cattle, there pastures developed.

Pasture plants have seeds that are readily carried about and distributed by the muddy feet of cattle. They also have good staying qualities: once rooted in the soil, they will live long even where they can grow but little. So we find them growing everywhere, flourishing in the light, hanging on in the shadow, as if waiting for a chance even in the deep shadow of the woods. Cut down the trees, and the grasses appear. Keep all the taller plants cut down, and the grasses spread and form a meadow. Brush-covered hills are sometimes changed into pastures simply by cutting them clean and turning in sheep. More sheep are kept on them than can find good forage; so, they are reduced to eating every green thing. It is hard on the sheep, but the grasses, relieved of the competition of the taller plants, spread in spite of very close cropping. After two or three seasons, the hills are turf-covered: the woody plants are gone. This is a crude method of pasture making, and one that is coming to be practiced in our day more often with goats than with sheep, goats having a wider range of diet; but it illustrates some fundamental condi

tions. Keep almost any weed patch mown, and it soon will be grass-covered.

The valuable pasture plants are all low-growing perennials, that spread over or through the soil and take root widely, and that are uninjured by the removal of their tops. Wherefore, an amount of browsing and trampling that is sufficient to destroy their competitors, leaves them uninjured and in possession of the soil. We raise some of these pasture grasses on our lawns. We crop them with a lawn mower to make them spread, and we compress the soil about them with a heavy roller, and a turf results. But these operations are performed in nature by means of muzzles and hoofs.

If you would understand the conditions pasture plants have to meet you can hardly do better than to cultivate friendly relations with some gentle old cow, and follow her awhile about the pasture watching the action of her muzzle and hoofs. Watch her crop the grass. See how she closes on it, and swings forward and upward, drawing it taut across the edges of her incisors (these being in her lower jaw). Hear the grass break at the joints, and tear and squeak as internodes are withdrawn from their sheaths. Then pull some grass by hand, and observe that while single leaves may break anywhere, the stems for the most part break at the joints, which are so formed that little injury to the plant results. The parts necessary for re-growth remain attached to the soil and uninjured. Then try the tops of any common garden weeds, and observe that, for the most part, they pull bodily, out of the ground. Herein appears one of the characteristics of good pasture plants: they must be able to withstand cropping-even close cropping.

Then watch the old cow's hoofs as she walks about over the turf. See how they spread when she steps in a soft place. Look at her tracks and see how the sharp edges of her hoofs have divided the turf and spread the roots and underground

stems of the grass asunder. If broken, take up the pieces and observe that each is provided with its own roots. Thus, a moderate amount of trampling only serves to push the grasses into new territory. Think how disastrous in comparison would be the descent of this bovine's hoofs upon the balsams and cabbages of the garden.

FIG. 30. The wire rush
(Juncus tenuis).

So, the chief perils to plants in the pasture are of three sorts. The danger of death from being eaten, from being pulled up and from being trampled. To be sure, both browsing and trampling may easily be overdone, and the hardiest of plants may be exterminated. This occurs in the places where the herds habitually stand in the shade of trees. Furthermore, mere hardiness will not qualify a plant to be a good member of the pasture society. The first requisite of all is that it shall be palatable and nutritious. The little wire rush (Fig. 30) is among the hardiest of pasture plants, growing habitually in the very edges of the path, but it is well nigh worthless as forage.

The most valuable plants for permanent pastures are all grasses. Indeed, the very best of them are native grasses that exist today just as they came to us from the hand of nature. The only selection that has been practiced on them is the natural selection that through long ages has eliminated such sorts as are not equipped to meet the requirements set.

Under certain conditions white clover and some other plants are useful members of permanent sod.

There are many other plants in the pasture, which we consider undesirable there, and hence call weeds. They mostly produce abundant seed and have excellent means of giving it wide dispersal. Many seeds find openings among the grasses.

a

FIG. 31. Blue-grass (a) and timothy (b): flowering spikes and roots;
with the two modes of producing new shoots underground shown
at (c).

A few of these plants survive by virtue of the same qualities that save the grasses. Some like the thistles and the teasel are spiny, and able to ward off destroyers. Many, like the mullein, the buttercup, the daisy and the yarrow, are unpalatable and are not sought by the cattle. Many grow well underground with only their leaves exposed to danger of trampling. If some leaves are cut off, new ones will promptly grow. Then, after a long season of growth, they suddenly shoot up flower stalks into the air, and quickly mature fruit. They do this, too, at the season of abundant grasses, when their exposed shoots are least endangered by close cropping. Some, like the dandelions and the plantains, produce so many flower stalks that they can survive the loss of some of them. Finally there are some, like the speedwells and the chickweeds, so small that they are inconsequential. They merely fill the chinks between the others.