ss and live stock will insure
the permanency of these lands. Under continuous cultivation there is a
constant shrinkage in muck soils, but with grass and live stock this is
nearly, if not quite, counterbalanced.

Carib grass on muck soils is, from limited data, superior to Para grass
both in yield and quality. On other types of soil Para will outyield
Carib. Rhodes grass does wonderfully on muck soil, and, indeed, on most
rich soils. Giant Bermuda is far coarser and more vigorous than ordinary
Bermuda. It will succeed wherever ordinary Bermuda will grow, and, in
addition, seems much better able to withstand flooding.

Temporary or annual pasture crops are mainly important in connection
with swine raising. Various systems of such crops have been devised to
furnish successive pastures. Florida has a long list of such crops that
can be utilized. Among them are oats, rye, rape, sorghum, peanuts, cow
peas, chufas, sweet potatoes, corn and velvet beans. Under certain
conditions the cattleman may have to utilize one or more of these crops,
but corn and velvet beans is the one that is the most important.

The story of the velvet bean is really one of the romances of
agriculture. Introduced into Florida about 1875 from some unknown
source, it first attracted attention as a forage about 1890. Until 1914
it was but little grown outside of Florida. In 1915 the crop was
certainly less than 1,000,000 acres. In 1916 it had increased to
2,500,000, and in 1917 to about 6,000,000 acres. The explanation of this
remarkable increase was the finding of earlier "sports." Three of these
appeared independently--one in Alabama, two in Georgia. These early
varieties immensely increased the area over which the velvet bean can be
grown, so that now it embraces practically all of the cotton belt. These
early sports of the old Florida are most grown, but the Chinese velvet
bean, introduced by the Department, and the hybrids developed by the
Florida Experiment Station, are important. In spite of vigorous search,
the native home of the Florida velvet bean yet remains unknown, but it
is probably in the Indo-Malayan region of Southern Asia.

The importance of the velvet bean to the live stock industry now
developing in the South can scarcely be over-estimated. Grown with corn,
it increases the corn crop year after year, and besides furnishes a
large amount of nutritious feed to be eaten by the animals when the
grass pasture season is over. It reduces