62-2 



Journal of Agriculture, Victoria. [10 Oct., 1918. 



a cool, diy place until marketed. It is essential tljat they should be 

 thoroughly dried before storing, otherwise they will not keep well, and 

 will tend to become mouldy. Experimental growths made in this State 

 show that an acre of well-cultivated sunflowers will yield from 50 to 60 

 bushels of good seed, from Avhich could bo obtained as many gallons of 

 oil of a quality little inferior to that of olive. Sunflower oil is a clear, 

 pale, yellow, limpid oil, with scarcely any smell and a mild, pleasant 

 characteristic taste. The oil is highly valued for its dietetic as well as 

 illuminating properties. 



Value as a Stock Food. 



The nutritive value of sunflower oil-cake as feed for cattle is recog- 

 uised. The dry method of sprinkling the meal upon roots, straw, or 

 chaff is, on the whole, preferable. The oil-cake of sunflower is so hard 

 that the cattle find difficulty in chewing the larger pieces, and for this 

 reason it is considered advisable to grind it before use into a fine meal, in 

 order to make it more digestible. It is recognised as a suitable food for 

 increasing the supply of milk in milcli cows, and it is used also with 

 horse feed with good results. Decorticated sunflower seed-cake forms 

 a nutritious food for live stock, although containing a rather high per- 

 centage of fibre. The cake made from undecorticated seed is naturally 

 less valuable, the fibre percentage being high. Analyses of the two 

 kinds of cake, according to Smetham (Ann. Eoy. Lanes. Agric. Soc. 

 1914), are shown in the following table, compared with cakes used in 

 Britain : — 



Sunflower seed-cake is produced in large quantities in South Russia, 

 and is principally exported to Denmark, where it is a popular cattle 

 food, and also to Sweden, France, and ISTorway. That large quantities 

 of the cake are sent to important cattle-rearing countries should be 

 sufficient to show that sunflower seed-cake is worthy of trial. The cake 

 is well adapted for dairy cows in quantities of about 3 to 4 lbs. per day; 

 larger quantities would be likely to impart an unpleasant flavour to 

 the butter. 



Sunflower Silage for Dairy Cows. 



An interesting experiment was carried out at the Agricultural Experi- 

 ment Station, Bozeman, Montana, in the spring of 1915 (Bulletin 

 ISTo. 118). A small area was seeded to Giant Russian Sunflowers. 

 Under irrigation the yield per acre was approximately 36 tons of green 



