310 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



INIr. Erwin : This is my third year on shredded fodder. One year 

 I used the blower and blew the shredded fodder into the barn and into 

 the convenient places for feeding. The last two years I threw aw-ay 

 the blower and put on an old fashioned carrier of my own make and 

 ran the hay baler behind it and drove the machine into the middle of the 

 com field and as fast as the fodder is shredded it is baled. I thought 

 that was the cheapest method I could handle it. It took one less team 

 than to haul the corn to the barn. When shredding in the middle of the 

 field and one team will do the baling and I can haul fifteen or twenty 

 shocks at a load and cover and handle it as conveniently as baled hay. 

 For my horse stock, especially I am no longer dependent on hay for 

 rough feed, but prefer the shredded fodder to the hay, and I find that 

 it makes excellent feed for cows. Then again here in our climate we 

 have a good deal of bad weather for husking corn in the ordinary way 

 and I get my corn husked and in the same operation the fodder baled, 

 so that I have nothing to do in the winter time but feed it out. 



^Ir. jMiller : The best explanation I ever heard in regard to sor- 

 ghum and corn I got from Prof. Waters. He said farmers have got 

 to raise corn in order to get the ears. Why not take ears and fodder 

 from the corn and leave the sorghum alone. Cut up every bit of the 

 corn. Some people have silos and some have not. Stack your corn 

 fodder like hay if you have no silo. I think that is as good advice as 

 can be given. 



Mr. Erwin : If you have sorghum on a high ridge you will have 

 green succulent feed to feed to your cattle, beginning the first of August 

 or last of July and it may be kept until the hard freezing weather comes 

 on, and you cannot have that in corn fodder. 



Mr. England: Is it not dangerous to turn cattle into sorghum? 

 Prof. Waters : Yes. 



Mr. Bruns : I agree with Prof. Waters that corn fodder is better 

 than sorghum for the silo, but the corn fodder will not take the place 

 of sorghum to help out the pasture — the fact is I feed sorghum as long 

 as it is not freezing weather. As long as the sorghum is not frozen to 

 ice it makes a juicy feed the same as silage. On thirty cows I have 

 increased my milk eight gallons in feeding sorghum tw^o days. But I 

 believe ensilage is all right in place of sorghum and better for winter 

 feeding. 



Prof. Waters : It may be that our experience has been a little un- 

 fortunate in sorghum. I want to give in one word the results we have 

 had with it in comparison with half corn fodder and half clover hay, not 

 with dairy cows, I regret to say, but with beef steers on full feed, and 

 in some instances steers that were being wintered. A strong mixture 



