FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IV. 269 



With all your search after new legumes do not neglect the clover as an 

 adjunct to your corn crop. The clover is an old stand-by. In one of our 

 experiments we washed out the roots of the clover, in part of a field yielding 

 a ton and a half to the acre of dry hay, and weighed and analyzed them. 

 We found that the roots alone gave us as much plant food as would have 

 been supplied by nearly ten tons of good barnyard manure per acre. The 

 clover is the crop which furnishes plenty of cow feed yet leaves the field 

 richer for having produced it. Moreover this plant food was so well dis- 

 tributed through the soil that it furnished support to the succeeding crop 

 just when that crop needed it and just where the roots could best get it. 

 Michigan farmers are adopting the rotation of corn, followed by wheat, 

 followed by clover, followed by corn. They plow under all the manure on 

 the clover sod and plant to corn which is kept well cultivated killing all 

 weeds. The wheat is put on the corn stubble without plowing and the clover 

 is seeded on the wheat without plowing. Thus they get a legume between 

 two cereals, get plenty of bedding and plenty of the best cow feeds. I do 

 not know that the rotation would appeal to Iowa farmers, 



I do not know that your conditions are sufficiently like ours to warrant 

 me in urging upon you the importance of the winter dairy. Corn is fed, 

 naturally, largely in the winter. We are urging in our State, therefore, that 

 the calves shall come in the fall. The calves do better; they are fed under 

 cover, are fed regularly, grow through the winter and are ready for spring 

 pasture and are big enough at fly time to stand the discomforts of that trying 

 period without setback. The cow too gives much more milk where calving 

 in the fall than when coming fresh in the spring. Finally it is better for the 

 farmer, as far as his help is concerned, to produce the most milk in the winter 

 and better for the country to have the factories run the year round, giving 

 the buttermaker steady work and the patrons steady cash. This will mean 

 an increase in cows until the hand separator will be an unnecessary imple- 

 ment because there will be a steam machine at every crossroads to skim the 

 milk of a thousand cows within the radius of a mile. Then the stables will 

 be furnished with proper stalls to keep the cows clean and the business will 

 be pursued with intelligence, energy and success. 



Turning now to the technical side of my topic, 1 shall assume that the 

 word corn in the title refers to the whole plant and not to the grain alone. 

 It is well to note something as to the distribution of the several food constit- 

 uents in the various parts of the plant. Let us take a hundred pounds of 

 the dried plants, ears, leaves and stems and see how the materials are di- 

 vided among them. 



As to the ash, needed for bone making and for other purposes in the ani- 

 mal economy, we note that one-half the content is in the leaves and but 

 17.40 per cent in the ears. If the corn is fed through the silo this fact will 

 make but little difference, but where the ear is fed alone, as to swine, it is an 

 all-important consideration. 



Of the total dry matter in one hundred pounds of corn plants, forty-six 

 per cent is in the ear, twenty- two per cent in the leaves and thirty-two per 

 cent in the stalks. Less than half of the material is therefore in the ear and 

 if the stalks are wasted, with them would go more than half of the dry 

 matter. 



Almost exactly half of the protein is in the ear, 33 per cent in the leaves, 

 and 17 per cent in the stalks. This is a very important matter. Note that 



