16 Farmers'- Bulletin 1126.

without irrigation maintained 20 sheep per acre continuously for 100 days. The sheep pastured on Sudan grass fattened, while those grazing Amber sorgo made only ordinary growth. The California experiment station pastured a nonirrigated field of Sudan grass with sheep at the rate of 22 head per acre. The sheep made gains of onethird of a pound a day while on the pasture, and no injurious effects were noted.

Sudan grass is also one of the best pasture grasses for irrigated lands in the Southwest. On the Yuma Experiment Farm at Bard, Calif., a small area of about 8 acres was pastured for six months in 1915 with milk cows and work horses (fig. 9). The field was divided in halves and each half pastured alternately in periods of two to three weeks. The grass was irrigated in each case as soon as the animals were removed. The field maintained an average of three head per acre in good condition throughout the entire period.

In Australia Sudan grass was compared with Dallis grass as a pasture for dairy cows. Although the cows were turned on the Sudan grass later in their lactation period than when pasturing the Dallis grass, the yield of milk was greater from Sudan than from Dallis grass. At the Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Manhattan, Kans.,6 six Holstein cows were pastured on Sudan grass from July 10 to October 11, 1919. They were fed a grain mixture at the rate of 1 pound to each 4 pounds of milk produced. The returns from the pasture, including about IJ tons of hay per acre which was harvested to keep the grass down, were $47.47 an acre above the value of the grain fed. This result was obtained by reckoning the butterfat at market prices and the skim milk at 50 cents a hundred pounds. Estimated by valuing the whole milk at 30 cents a gallon, the returns amounted to $73.55 per acre above the cost of the grain consumed.

Besides these more or less definite tests by experiment stations, numerous farmers have reported excellent results with Sudan grass pasture. This is particularly true in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and eastern Kansas, where it is being utilized as a summer pasture by scores of farmers.

Hogs relish the grass, and when they have access to Sudan grass pasture good gains can be produced with 60 to 70 per cent of the customary grain ration.

Sudan grass, like Johnson grass, is less likely to contain dangerous amounts of prussic acid than the larger sorghums. Only three authentic cases of poisoning by Sudan grass have been called to the attention of the United States Department of Agriculture. The most serious of these occurred on a farm in Kansas where for two years the Sudan grass had been pastured without trouble. The third year, after a crop badly injured by drought had been cut for hay, 40 cows were turned into the field to pasture the aftermath. In three hours 17 of the cows became sick and some of them died. Such experiences show plainly that, notwithstanding the comparative safety of Sudan grass as pasture, care must be used in pasturing it with cattle, especially in the Northwestern States.

6 Call L E. and J. B. Fitch. Sudani grass as a supplementary pasture crop for dairy cattle. Kans. Agr. Exp, Sta. Cir. 80, 4 p. 1920.