710 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Halstad, northwestern Minnesota, fodder corn (shocked in the field), $8.08; 

 wild hay, $2.87; oats, $6.31; barley, $6.41; and wheat, $6.26. Large farm 

 in northwestern Minnesota, fodder (shocked in the field), $7.52; wild hay 

 $2.29; oats, $5.88; barley, $5.97; and wheat, $5.82. 



The total cost per bushel of thrashing wheat from the shock at Halstad, 

 northwestern Minnesota, is 7.4 cents, and when stacked and stack-thrashed, 

 10.1 cents. Oats when thrashed from the shock at Northfield, southeastern 

 Minnesota, cost 4.3 cents per bushel to thrash, and when stacked and 

 stack-thrashed, 5.2 cents per bushel. Thrashing oats from the shock at 

 Halstad, northwestern Minnesota, cost 3.6 cents per bushel, and stacking 

 and stack-thrashing 4.9 cents per bushel. Barley, thrashed from the 

 shock at Northfield, southeastern Minnesota, cost 4.8 cents per bushel, and 

 when stacked and stack-thrashed, 5.9 cents; and at Halstad, northwestern 

 Minnesota, barley cost 4.4 cents to thrash from the shock, and when 

 stacTted and stack-thrashed 5.4 cents. 



For the majority of farmers stacking and stack-thrashing the grain 

 crops is advisable, particularly so in those localities where labor is scarce 

 and thrashing machinery not readily available. Well stacked grain is 

 cheap insurance against bleached, sprouted and bin-burned grain, and 

 helps toward early fall plowing. 



The cost per acre for producing winter forage for cattle in the form of 

 mixed clover and timothy hay is $6.97; field cured fodder corn, $12.20; 

 and the corn silage $I?.21, at Northfield, southeastern Minnesota. The 

 use of the more expensive forage crops is profitable only where farms are 

 located close to large cities, where the cattle to be fed are highly bred 

 and highly productive, and when the soil is productive and the crop so 

 well handled as to yield maximum yields of forage (four to five tons per 

 acre of field cured fodder corn and fourteen to fifteen tons per acre of 

 corn silage). Mixed clover and timothy hay, alsike and alfalfa are un- 

 doubtedly the most profitable forage crops for a vast majority of the 

 farms of the upper Mississippi valley. 



The cost per acre of raising field corn at Northfield, southeastern Min- 

 nesota, and cutting and shocking the corn and shredding and husking by 

 machinery is $14.74. The cost of raising field corn and husking the ears 

 from the standing stalks is $11.77 per acre, and a crop of thickly planted 

 fodder corn can be raised and the fodder hauled into the barn for $12.20 

 per acre. 



The most profitable plan of growing a given acreage of corn, partly for 

 grain and partly for forage, in that agricultural region is to devote a 

 small portion of the corn ground to thickly planted fodder corn and the 

 remainder of the acreage to corn grown for ears which are to be husked 

 from the standing stalks, and the stalks pastured off by cattle. Shred- 

 ding corn stover is a costly practice that should be resorted to only in 

 case the hay crop is badly weathered or other unforeseen conditions 

 demand an additional supply of winter forage. 



