FARMERS INSTITUTES. 



277 



Table VI. Rape as pasture, two separate trials. Lots i and 3, 

 fed on a ration of 2 parts corn and i part shorts and had run of rape 

 patches. Lots 2 and 4 fed on same ration without rape. 



The value of rape as a surnmer feed is unquestioned. Old feed lots, 

 instead of being allowed to produce luxuriant crops of jimson and bur- 

 dock can be planted to rape. I have seen many such instances verify- 

 ing the foregoing table. Make the calculation and you will discover that 

 the actual productive value of the rape in this case was equivalent to 

 46.4 bushels of corn to the acre. Just as good results are had from rye 

 pasture for fall and early spring. Then might come early sown oats, 

 then sorghum, then rape, then cow peas, making a continuous succulent 

 pasture practically the year round. While farm animals do better when 

 they have the run of a pasture than if the same growth of the pasture is 

 cut off and fed to them as in soiling, yet the same yield will go four times 

 as far when soiled. The time comes on when land will be so high that 

 it will not be economy to turn stock onto the crops to trample them 

 down and get only one-fourth of their actual value. The pig will do 

 quite well on soiled crops. But the best plan, probably, would be to put 

 the crops into the silo. Mr. E. N. Cobb of Monmouth, Illinois, feeds 

 his hogs for fattening, a combined ration of silage and ear corn to great 

 advantage. He feeds his brood sows on a ration of ten pounds corn sil- 

 age and two pounds of oats daily. They do splendidly on it, and it 

 makes a cheap ration. Clover in season, sweet corn, rape, etc., may be 

 cut and fed to the pigs with profit. 



There are a number of other problems that come up for solution. 

 One would be the benefit of grinding. I discuss grinding feed more 

 fully later on. Soaking and wetting feed has a value sometimes. But 

 cooking feed has not shown good results. In fact, with some twenty ex- 

 periment station tests it has turned out that cooked feed does not pro- 

 duce as great gains as raw. It seems natural for a pig to eat his food raw. 

 It will take a long time to educate him up to such a degree of refinement 

 as for him to require cooked feed. A daily ration of slops, however, is of 

 great value, but it should not be given as an exclusive diet. 



BALANCE THE CORN. 



As we in Missouri are almost in the center of the great American 

 corn belt and as corn is much the cheapest feed we can raise much the 



