240 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



a silo making a silage richer in protein than other silage fed. Its 

 per cent of dry matter when fed was 49.92 and its per cent of protein 4.5. 



Alfalfa hay has never been produced in sufficient quantities at the 

 station to test its feeding quality. Analyses have shown it to be richer 

 in protein than red clover hay by nearly if not quite 50%. Cuttings 

 have been made as, early as the 25th of May and as late as the 5th of 

 September. The hay from the first cutting has been the most succulent, 

 that is contained the most water, while the hay from the last cutting, 

 equally as rich in total nitrogen, has been less rich in true protein, the 

 nitrogen being largely in the form of amids. It has been found some- 

 what difficult at times to cure the hay without the loss of leaves. It 

 has been raked together when less dry than clover is' usually raked. 

 It is then left in bunches to sweat, the bunches being covered at night 

 with hay covers. As reported in other bulletins, the yield of alfalfa 

 per acre per year has been most satisfactory. It has been tried as a 

 pasture, but not with satisfactory results. Sheep have shown a tendency 

 to bloat, especially when the alfalfa has been damp by dews. The pas- 

 turing has not seriously injured the roots, however, although the -plots 

 pastured have yielded to the encroachments of the great enemy of alfalfa, 

 blue grass, more readily than have the plots not pastured. 



Soy beans have been fed as hay and as silage, in combination with 

 corn. It was found no easy matter to cure the soy beans for hay, 

 largely because they mature in the autumn when the weather is not dry 

 enough and not hot enough to quickly dry the hay. The leaves break 

 up and are lost leaving the very woody stems which do not make 

 a palatable feed for cattle. Both cattle and sheep have eaten the straw 

 from ripe soy beans after threshing, except the coarsest woody stems. 

 Of the varieties of soy beans, the medium green is the most promising 

 for hay or silage. 



Compea hay has been grown for several years but not in large quanti- 

 ties. Like the hay from soy beans it matures in the fall and, where 

 the crop is at all heavy, it is quite difficult to harvest and still more 

 difficult to cure unless the weather be exceptionally favorable. Late 

 spring and early fall frosts, both not infrequent in the State, make 

 the growing and curing of cowpeas for hay too precarious to allow it 

 to be added to our list of regular coarse fodder. 



CEREALS. 



Com. As a forage crop corn has been fed both in the form of silage 

 and as stover and grain. No experiments have been conducted to test 

 the comparative merits of these two methods of preserving it. When 

 the corn has been husked, the stalks have usually been shredded, largely 

 to make them more easily handled and to keep the long coarse stalks 

 out of the manure. It has been shown by other stations that there is a 

 slight profit in shredding the fodder although the large per cent of 

 crude fiber in the conrser parts of the stalk indicates that, although the 

 chemist finds present no inconsiderable amount of carbohydrates, the 

 cow finds that it requires about all the energy derived from the coarse 

 material to digest it. It is therefore questionable whether there is much 



