by Pasturing

1

MANY people have tried to get out of the weed-growing class by pasturing their weeds. This method of course has a thousand variations, depending on climate, type of soil, kind of weed, and kind of livestock used. One of the commonest and most successful types goat pasturing-is practiced largely in the coast counties and in Douglas County. The goats clear land of brush and some troublesome weeds. They eat St. Johnswort when it is young and reduce fern to some extent. Pasturing plus a sod-forming grass will keep fern under control.

Reports of killing morning glories with hogs are frequent. It is rough on the hogs to keep them so hungry that they will work the ground over and over searching for the roots, but such pasturing for two seasons of sometimes kills small patches. One man reports that he planted artichokes on his morning-glory land and that gave the hogs an added reason for rooting.

Garden plots have a depressing and discouraging habit of changing into morningglory patches, and some Oregon people have thereupon put chicken yards upon such ground. Chickens like the morning-glory leaves and keep them eaten down so that the roots may die in 4 or 5 years, provided poultry diseases and parasites do not get the chickens first. Continuous pasturing of chickens on the same land may be fatal to poultry profits.

Other more extensive types of pasturing are frequent. The easiest thing to do with. quackgrass is to pasture it, and it makes a great deal of very good pasture. But as weeds are weeds mostly because cattle do not like them as well as grass, this pasture method is more likely to reduce the spread of weeds than to kill them. Canada thistles are not eaten much unless stock get very hungry. One Wallowa County farmer sprayed his thistles with salt, and his hundred head of steers ate them with enthusiasm. He reports that he killed a fine stand of thistles in 2 years by keeping them eaten to the ground in this way.

Two of the three common kinds of white top, except when young, are not relished by any kind of animals. Furthermore, that

1 From Control of Perennial Weeds in Oregon by E. R. Jackman, Extension Specialist in Farm Crops Lawrence Jenkins, Assistant Crops Specialist; C. A. Henderson, County Agricultural Agent of Klamath County; W. A. Holt, County Agricultural Agent of Umatilla County; and H. G. Avery, County Agricultural Agent of Union County, recently issued by Oregon State College as Extension Bulletin 510.

weed goes to seed early, at a time of the year when more palatable feed is abundant. If animals are kept on short pasture, they will eat these seeds and scatter the weed whereever they go. Pasturing is, therefore, more likely to spread white top than to stop it.

Sheep like many kinds of weeds. Buckhorn, for example, is seeded in many sheep pastures in Douglas and Coos Counties. Morning-glory fields have been converted to sheep pastures all over the State.

A grower in Wasco County, in a letter telling of his experience in using sheep to control morning-glory, states:

"We practice clean cultivation of orchards here, and I have one block of pear orchard that, over a period of years, has become completely covered with morning-glory. Cultivation in an orchard does nothing but improve the stand of morning-glory, so feeling sure that chemical applications would ruin the orchard, I was compelled to figure some other method of handling this problem."

"I placed a woven-wire fence around this orchard, turned a small bunch of Hampshire sheep in it, and find that the morning-glory is being killed out and the sheep do very well. They do not bark the trees and they keep the windfall fruit cleaned up, as well as the sucker growth from injured roots.

"I disk this orchard deep in the spring and loosen it up occasionally in the summer with a Kimball weeder, and the morningglory never gets to vine out, as the sheep very partial to this young tender

seem

growth.

"Another small piece of morning-glory I made a hog lot of and kept hogs there 2 years. They went down about 2 feet after those morning-glory roots, and it seems to have cleaned that piece as I have farmed it now for about 8 years.

"I have a field of about 5 acres that is full of morning-glory, and I am letting this field remain idle and pasturing sheep in it. I believe that after 3 years I will be able to get a stand of alfalfa there and in the meantime the sheep are paying a small profit."

A farmer in Multnomah who used alfalfa plus sheep for weed control writes:

"Regarding the control of morning-glory on my property in Clark County, we did have a very heavy infestation and for a number of years, while growing annual crops in the infested district, we found it practically impossible to control them. However, after planting alfalfa and grazing the alfalfa with sheep both during the early grow

ing season and after each cutting of hay, as well as late in the season, we found that the infestation of morning-glory has entirely disappeared.

"We noticed that the morning-glory plant was apparently quite palatable, but whether the heavy pasturing or the competition of the alfalfa combined with the pasturing was the cause of the eradication we are not prepared to say. However, it remains a fact that the infestation has entirely disappeared without any cultural or chemical efforts toward control."

All of the growers interviewed agreed that several years of pasturing made the weeds easier to kill either by chemicals or clean cultivation. The repeated damage to the tops probably reduced the root area and thereby diminishes the amount of stored food in the roots. If a grower has too many weeds to clean up in 1 year's time and is starting on a conscientious weed-control program aimed at eventual elimination of the weeds from his farm, pasturing is one of the best ways to tie the weeds down and hold them until he can get around to more drastic measures. Weeds such as white top and Canada thistle, which bear seed in pastures, should be cut early enough and often enough to keep seed from forming. Some low-growing weeds such as morning-glories cannot be prevented from forming seeds by cutting, but fortunately the morning-glories do not produce much seed after a year or two of pasturing.

Salt River Crops

PRACTICALLY all project crops on the Salt River project are in good condition. Because of the 12 months' growing and irrigation season two crops are grown on some 50,000 acres of this project during the year.

The principal double crops consist commonly of corn, maize, spring and fall lettuce, melons, cantaloups, potatoes, and the grains.

Milk River Sugar Beets

APPROXIMATELY 16,000 acres of sugar beets will be harvested in the factory district of the Milk River project this season. This will provide the largest tonnage and longest campaign of record.

were

UTAH: Gooseberry. Preparations continued of report on the Price River development and the Gooseberry investigations. Weber River.-Topographic surveys of reservoirs on Farmington and Hobbs Creeks were completed.

UTAH-IDAHO-WYOMING: Bear River surveys.-Investigations were made of dam sites in the Oneida Narrows and in the Nounan Valley. Studies were made of Bear River for control of inflow below Bear Lake and for an enlarged Cutler Reservoir. Studies of a reservoir at Woodruff Narrows in Wyoming were begun.

Colorado River Basin.-A report of the land classification of the Colorado River Basin was in course of preparation.

Minidoka Dairy Records

The opening of bids in connection with the relocation of a railroad on the Central Valley Project, California, resulted in the abstract above held by Assistant Commissioner Williams and Wesley R. Nelson, Chief of Engineering Division

Commissioner Page Returns
to Washington

JOHN C. PAGE, Commissioner of Reclamation, returned to the Washington Office on October 31, after attending the annual meeting of the National Reclamation Association in Reno October 11-13, and immediately following a conference at Boulder City, Nev., of the supervisory staff of the Bureau of Reclamation.

Mr. Page accompanied Secretary Ickes on his tour of the Southwest, which included the dedication of the Imperial Dam and the turning of the first water into the AllAmerican Canal.

Mr. Page will attend the meeting, November 14-16, in Chicago, of the Association of Land-Grant Colleges, and will deliver an address on November 16 on the subject "The Federal Reclamation Program."

W. R. Nelson Addresses Students

WESLEY R. NELSON, Chief of the Engineering Division of the Washington office, delivered an illustrated lecture on October 14 before the student body of the George Washington University, his subject being Unusual

Features of Construction. Following Mr. Nelson's lecture the sound motion-picture film of Boulder Dam was shown.

I. A. Winter at Meeting
Power Division ASCE

I. A. WINTER, Senior Engineer in the Denver office of the Bureau, prepared a paper on the subject, Progress and Economic Development and Design of Turbines and Appurtenances, which was read at the meeting in New York on October 13-14 of the power division of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

L. W. Hamilton to Attend Meeting

on Soils Investigations

L. W. HAMILTON, Associate Engineer in the Denver office of the Bureau, will attend and deliver a paper on The Compaction of Earth Embankments at the meeting in Washington, during the week beginning November 28, of the Department of Soils Investigations of the Highway Research Board.

While in the city Mr. Hamilton will visit the Washington office and confer with the Chief of the Engineering Division on the subject of investigations in soil mechanics.

To Ogden River project:

Norman T. Olson, engineer, from Kendrick project, Wyoming.

Reinstatements

Colorado-Big Thompson project:

Cleves H. Howell, senior engineer.

Richard B. Ward, engineer.

Separation

Washington Office:

Marshall G. Jones, associate economic ana lyst (temporary appointment) close September 30, to be employed in P. W. A.

Butte County (S. Dak.) Fair

THE Butte County Fair (Belle Fourche project) held on September 8-10, had outstanding exhibits in agriculture, livestock sales, and 4-H and community displays. The HorseCreek group captured blue ribbons in community and women's clubs departments.

102736 U. S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1938