1 52 Additional Crops for Cows and Sheep. 



become thoroughly warm, and according to the situation 

 that will be from the end of May to the middle of June. 

 Thoroughly cleaned, well-manured land should be chosen, 

 and a deep friable seed bed be secured. A cvistomary dressing 

 is 10 to 12 tons of farmyard manure with 3 or 4 cwt. of super- 

 phosphate, and a top dressing of 1 cwt. to 1^ cwt. of nitrate of 

 soda ; but of course, as for all crops, the condition of the land 

 regulates the quantity needed. It is a common practice in some 

 districts to put maize on the sites of mangold heaps, potato 

 clamps, and other odd places which leave a rich soil behind 

 them, and nowhere is it likely to do better. From 1^ to 2^ 

 bushels of seed, according to size, are needed per acre, and this 

 is sown by several different methods ; the rows should be 

 from 18 to 24 in. apart, and the latter is rarely too wide. 

 The seed may be dibbled in in holes about 8 in. apart; may 

 be ploughed in, the seed being dropped from a drill carried 

 on the beam, as sometimes practised for bean drilling, or it 

 may be drilled with an ordinary corn drill. When planting 

 light land I have put in a good many acres with the ordinary 

 drill quite satisfactorily ; but if the land is not well prepared 

 and the coulters will not deposit fully 3 in. deep, some other 

 method should be adopted, or in dry weather germination 

 will be slow, and rooks, pheasants, and other birds which begin 

 to feed early at maize sowing time will cause much trouble. 

 It is absolutely necessary to keep birds from the crop until it is 

 well above ground. The land must be kept clean from weeds 

 iintil the growth of the crop smothers them. When it can be 

 left until it is fit to cut, cutting is generally done with a swop 

 or fagging hook ; and the most customary method of giving it 

 to cows is to throw it out on pastures ; it is sometimes, however, 

 coarsely chaffed and fed in the manger at milking time. 



Helianti, a tubering plant of the sunflower order, has recently 

 been introduced, and from results obtained in the recent 

 hot summer is likely to prove very valuable to stock-keepers. 

 My first personal experience of it was in 1910, when I grew 

 half an acre, leaving the crop to mature ; it produced a big 

 growth of foliage and a heavy crop of tubers ; but in casual 

 attempts to feed it to animals the results were not sufficiently 

 attractive to make me appreciate it highly. I gave a consider- 

 able quantity of the tubers to pigs, and should have grown no 

 more except that in an out of the way corner of a field where 

 floods very often destroy crops, I decided to plant half an acre 

 for pheasant cover, and if possible to use the produce : this was 

 so much an afterthought that the sets were not planted until 

 June, and they were then in a verj' withered condition. 

 Growth was extremely rapid in spite of the hot weather, and a 

 good crop resulted. Part of this has been fed to cows, part to 



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