The Outlook for New Forages.
What the future may hold in store for us in the way of new forages does not assist at the present time, but it is worth considering. It is well to bear in mind that the agriculture of the North, with the single important exception of corn, is mainly a direct inheritance from European agriculture. Substitute root crops for corn and you have in essence the European practice. Southern agriculture, on the contrary, is almost purely an American development—cotton, corn, tobacco, sweet potatoes, from the American Indian; cow peas, Rhodes grass, Natal grass and sorghum from South Africa; soy beans, lespedeza, Japanese cane from Japan; carpet grass and Para grass from the West Indies; Bermuda from India; velvet beans from Southern Asia.
Northern forage plants have been pretty thoroughly studied both in Europe and America, because European conditions are fairly like those of our Northern States. But there yet remains hosts of grasses and legumes adapted to sub-tropical climates concerning which we know practically nothing.
Out of very numerous grasses and legumes at present under test are several that possess promise, and these I shall discuss briefly.