282 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



toward condemning it as a substitute. Our experiments do not warrant 

 us in recommending the crop in any locality where Indian corn can be 

 grown. An acre of the latter will produce nearly as much protein as an 

 acre and three-quarters of the former, and will at the same time yield 

 fully twelve per cent more starch, sugar and other soluble carbohydrates. 

 More extended feeding experiments must be conducted before the rela- 

 tive feeding values of these two forage crops can be fully determined, 

 but as far as the trials already conducted at this station go, they show 

 that a larger proportion of the corn plant is eaten than of the sorghum, 

 and this whether fed in the form of silage or shredded fodder. Whether 

 the plan of cutting sorghum while the plants are young and recutting 

 frequently the suckers that are thrown out, is a good one or not remains 

 for future experiments. Trials elsewhere show the practice of pasturing 

 sorghum fields after the first crop is cut to be attended with danger. 



Kaffir Com. — This plant is a sorghum, but one that does not produce 

 a sufficient amount of sugar in its juice to make it valuable as a source 

 of molasses or sugar. It is therefore called a non-saccharine sorghum. 

 While growing in the field it resembles corn. The ears at the side of 

 the stalk are wanting, however, as it bears its seeds at the top. 



A half acre of ground adjacent to the half acre plots of sorghum and 

 vSalzer's fodder corn was planted to Kaffir corn May 5th, 1896. The rows 

 were three feet apart and the hills 18 inches apart in the row. It was 

 cultivated first with a Breed's weeder and afterwards with the horse 

 cultivators, at the same time and in the same way as the sorghum. The 

 crop was harvested into the silo early in September, the gross yield per 

 acre being 34,360 lbs. 



An analysis of the green fodder was not made; that of the silage is 

 reported as number 33 in the table, page 88. 



The cows ate both the silage and the dry fodder of Kaffir corn with 

 considerable relish. The main objection to the plant seems to be its 

 stiff, woody, pole-like stems, which the cows will eat, neither when put in 

 the silo nor when fed as dry fodder. It is slow to start in the spring, 

 makes a tall growth and yields an abundance of green forage to the 

 acre. As the analysis of the silage indicates, this growth is watery and 

 much less valuable, pound for pound, than the same weight of corn. 

 While the feeding tests made at this station have led to no positive 

 results, they show negatively that Kaffir corn has so far shown no right 

 to be reckoned as of equal value with corn as a forage crop for Michigan. 



Glover Hay. — It has been impossible, in recent years, to obtain on the 

 college farm until the season of 1897 a pure clover hay. Heretofore the 

 nearest approach to it has been a mixture of timothy and clover. The 

 root borer has not been as destructive during the fall of 1896 and the 

 spring of 1897 as for the three years preceding, and full crops of clover 

 hay are again possible. 



This forage crop has proven valuable, first, because it is relatively rich 

 in protein and digestible nutrients, and secondly, because it derives a 

 large proportion of the fertilizers necessary to its growth from the air. 



It would be out of place in this bulletin to go into a discussion of the 

 utilization of the free nitrogen of the air by leguminous crops in general, 

 and by clover in particular. For the purposes of this discussion it is 



