Our water is so hard it is barley fit for live stock on some places. A
mile
from my home place you can't drink it because of the magnesium content. It
is an excellent laxative.

Interestingly enough I suspect most cattle in the UK drink mains water, the
same as the rest of the population. The environmentalists are not keen on
cattle having access to rivers and the water authorities aren't either.


The soil on my home place can be pasture rain or shine on grass or wheat
pasture. If you provide enough nitrogen the grazing over the years has no
effect on the yield. Some years it hurts it a little some year is help it
a
little and every once in while it make a lot of difference. Usually the
difference is positive because it prevents freeze damage to the jointing
wheat.

Up in the northern part of the county getting close to the Wichita
mountains
in more conventional soils the soils are more varied. Gong form soil that
won't make a puddle if you up end a 5 gallon bucket full of water on it to
gumbo in 20 feet.


three of four miles north of me they have limestone pavement sticking
through the soil, a couple of miles the other way they have pretty well
bottomless peat on running sand. Ours has been a busy area :-))

Back in the 1840s a lot of this land would grow cereals, from the old tithe
maps anywhere from a third to a half of this farm would be grain. With the
coming of the railway and the opening up of the USA they went over to more
dairy cows, shipping milk by train into the big cities.

Jim Webster