1 8 AGRICULTURE OF MAINE. 



lettered upon the walls of his stables and indelibly stamped 

 upon the tables of his memory the ancient and wise saying, 

 "Withholding doth not enrich thee, nor giving impoverish." 



CORN' AXD THE SILO. 



Of all the home grown dairy feeds, not even excepting the 

 hay crop, I believe com to be the most important. This grand 

 crop should receive roy^l homage as well as scientific attention. 

 As a producer both of roughage and of grain it is unexcelled. 

 It is an ideal and an effective tillage plant. It is of great value 

 in a rotation. In total food nutrients from a given area no other 

 crop can compare with it. In digestibility it excells them all, 

 while it is eaten with great relish by all animals. Even with all 

 these favorable attributes, it is capable of much improvement, 

 both in yield and in quality. The selection of seed may add 

 much to the former, and intelligent fertilization and culture to 

 the latter. Corn is truly an American plant, and thrives over 

 a large area of her territor}', but in no place better, from the 

 dairy feeder's standpoint, than in Maine, with the exception of 

 her most northerly portions. It may have two separate and 

 distinct values. It may be made a money crop and a fodder 

 crop, yielding a cash value per acre second only to potatoes, and 

 a feeding value per acre of practically double the average yield 

 of hay. The cash returns may be used to purchase protein 

 supplementary feed, but if large quantities of this feed can be 

 raised they may be made to directly swell the credit side of the 

 farm account. If the location of the farm or the tastes of the 

 owner do not warrant the planting of sweet corn for canning, 

 a still larger amount of fodder value may be grown from the 

 larger varieties of yellow corn, and the ears will furnish much 

 valuable grain, which can be fed ground into meal, on the ear, 

 or without removing from the stalk, from the silo. 



During the many years that we have fed cows, corn has filled 

 a most important place in our work. In winter it forms at 

 least one-half of the roughage and in summer, with but scant 

 pasturage, it does far more than this. There have been years 

 when a single day has not passed without corn being fed from 

 the silo in summer until the early varieties were mature enough 



