You may have noted that all the pasture plants I have mentioned are grasses. Very unfortunately we have not as yet any good perennial pasture legume adapted to Florida. I say "unfortunately" because, as is well known, the true grasses are nutritious in proportion to the fertility of the land. That is, the better the land the more nutritious the pasture. But with legumes no such relations exist, because legumes are not dependent on the soil for their nitrogen supply.
While we have no satisfactory perennial pasture legume, we have one summer annual, lespedeza, that helps to some extent in North Florida. There are also two winter annuals that reproduce themselves in which I have considerable confidence, namely, burr clover and narrow-leaf vetch. I believe that on many of the better pasture soils, especially in North Florida, that these legumes can be established and that they will re-seed themselves year after year. Of course due care must be taken to secure inoculation, preferably by the soil method.
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.
Kudzu.
Kudzu is not particularly new, but it seems to me destined to a much greater importance than at present. It is the only perennial forage legume that has in any sense made good in Florida. It is much better adapted to clayey soils than to sandy soils, but it also succeeds remarkably well on the limestone soils about Miami. On the better sandy soils it would also seem to be valuable, but on the poorer sandy soils and poorly drained lands it is doubtful if it has a place. On clay soils at Arlington Farm, Va., we have consistently gotten two cuttings, totaling five tons of hay per acre—double what we can get from cow peas or soy beans. I believe kudzu is entitled to a fair trial by every Florida cattleman.
Napier Grass.
You have doubtless seen some of the numerous references recently in Florida papers to "Japanese bamboo grass" or "Carter's grass" as grown about Arcadia. These names rest upon a misconception. The grass is a native of South Africa, properly known as Napier grass, or Pennisetum macrostachyum, introduced by the Department in 1913. This is a perennial much like Japanese cane, and in our tests is found hardy as far north as Charleston. It does well on rather poor soil and yields heavy crops. In chemical analysis it is richer than corn in protein and carbohydrates, but also contains three times as much fiber. It is this high fiber content or woody character that makes me dubious about its silage value, in which opinion Professor Rolfs concurs. When two or three feet high it is greedily eaten by animals, and so may be a pasturage possibility. As a green feed crop it could be cut three or more times each season, when three or four feet high, and I am sure will prove a very valuable forage for the man with one or two cows. Whether it is a crop for the stockman is still doubtful.