322 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



the common red clover usually offered on the market, because im- 

 properly made. \Vhen grown with timothy, ripening as it does two 

 weeks earlier than does the latter, it is too ripe when harvested. 

 When timothy is at its best, the clover blossom has browned and 

 its stem becomes woody and largely indigestible. Red clover should 

 be cut before many heads are brown, though not all are yet in bloom. 

 If clover and timothy are to be grown together, the variety should 

 be the Mammoth; but the manner of curing clover hay has much 

 to do in producing the objectionable features complained of. It 

 should never be sun-dried, but cured in a mow practically air-tight, 

 or what is more practicable, in a shock. Thus cured, the leaves 

 containing the larger per cent, of the plant protein, retain their 

 bright green color, and the blossoms, their red. Dark brown clover 

 hay, sun-dried, is unfit for horse feed and has lost half its value for 

 the dairv cow. 



At the present prices of concentrated protein foods, the Pennsyl- 

 vania farmer must seek to produce his own protein, or abandon his 

 hopes of large profits from his dairy. In the clovers we have the 

 most available source oi Drotein. With clover and shredded corn 

 stover or silage for roughage, and corn meal and wheat bran as con- 

 centrates, we readily compound a balanced ration for the herd or 

 team; a ration the most healthful that can be produced, and the 

 greater part of which is produced on the farm. Or with alfalfa, 

 corn silage and corn meal with a much smaller proportion of wheat 

 bran, an equally valuable ration may be compounded at a trifling 

 cash outlay. 



But so much attention is now being given to rations of the dairy 

 cow especially, that I shall not enter the subject farther, my only 

 purpose having been to point out the important place occupied by 

 the clovers in a well-balanced and healthful ration. 



It will be noted that I couple "well-balanced" with ''healthful,'" 

 as modifying rations, for healthfulness must go before the standard 

 ratio. From one i)oint of view the cow is a machine for the manu- 

 facture of the raw material into the finished product — milk; but 

 she is far more than a machine; she is a living, sentiment being 

 whose nerves go before her lacteal glands, and whose health and 

 comfort condition her profitable performances. In the selection of 

 her food, therefore, not only the chemist but the physiologist must 

 be consulted. Clover has been proven to possess not only a high per 

 cent, of digestible protein, but other properties that are greatly 

 relished by the flocks, herds and teams, and that contribute to the 

 health of the animal. Physicians prescribe a clover hay infusion for 

 the nervous spasm peculiar to whooping-cough. They also classify 

 it under that vague name "alterative," and administer it success- 

 fully in scrofulous affections of the glands and skin. 



