CATTLE FOODS NATURAL PRODUCTS 239 



but little as indicating completeness of preservation, for 

 it may even be the result of extensive fermentations, a 

 condition expensively secured. Its significance is entirely 

 different when the sweetness is due to proper maturity 

 of the fodder plant. 



THE STRAWS 



326. When the grain plants which produce seeds 

 valuable for cattle and human foods are threshed, or 

 in some way manipulated to remove the seeds, the other 

 parts of the plant constitute what we call straw in the 

 case of the cereal grains and legumes, and stover in 

 the case of maize. These fodders differ from the same 

 plants, when cut in a less mature condition for hay or 

 fodder, in being more tenacious and less palatable, with 

 a smaller proportion of the more digestible, and there- 

 fore more valuable, compounds. The most useful of these 

 materials for feeding purposes are corn stover, oat straw, 

 and the legume straws. These are better relished by farm 

 animals than wheat and barley straws, which are utilized 

 mostly for litter. 



ROOTS AND TUBERS 



327. Certain species of plants, more especially beets, 

 mangel-wurzels, turnips, rutabagas, carrots, and pota- 

 toes, are agriculturally valuable because of the store of 

 nutrients which they deposit in subterranean branches 

 or in roots. The original purpose of this deposit is, in 

 the case of potatoes and artichokes, to nourish the young 

 plants of the next generation, or, in the case of bien- 

 nials like beets, to supply the materials for the seed- 

 stalk and seeds of the second year. Potatoes are not 

 grown primarily as food for cattle, but roots have for 



