CHAPTER VI 
HAY AND GREEN FEED 
THE product of meadows may be fed immediately or 
it may be preserved. If it is fed immediately, the process 
is known as soiling, and crops grown for this purpose are 
called soiling crops. To preserve forage it must be pro- 
tected from decomposition or rotting. This may be 
accomplished by removing a sufficient proportion of water 
by drying, in which case the product is called hay. Or the 
forage may be preserved green, the destructive decom- 
position being prevented by the exclusion of the air. The 
preserved product is then called silage. 
HAY 
68. In the wide sense, hay is dried vegetation used as 
food for animals. In this sense ripened buffalo-grass and 
standing cornstalks, grazed during winter, are hay. In 
the restricted sense, the word hay is applied to the cut 
and dried or cured product of meadows, more particularly 
the product of the smaller grasses and clovers. The coarse 
hay of cornstalks and other large grasses is more often 
called fodder. Ordinarily meadow hay is made by cutting 
with a mower and allowing the cut material to lie in the 
sun until partly dried, after which it is raked into wind- 
rows, then placed in bunches or cocks and finally in 
stacks or under a roof. The process is varied to suit con- 
ditions. The object is to remove sufficient moisture to 
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