CHAPTER XIV 

 ROOTS, TUBERS, AND OTHER SUCCULENT FEEDS 



Root crops are grown for stock feeding to only a relatively 

 limited extent in this country. There can be no question as to their 

 value for this purpose; all agree that they are highly nutritious 

 feeds and greatly relished by farm animals. The main objection 

 to their use is the cost and the difficulty of growing them. It may 

 be that this objection is, in general, well founded, and that there 

 are crops equally valuable as stock feeds that can be grown with less 

 labor and expense, e. g., Indian corn in the central and eastern States, 

 and alfalfa in the West, to mention only those two important forage 

 crops. But roots have a special place to fill in the feeding of live- 

 stock. They have a very beneficial effect on the health and the 

 production of milch cows, ewes, and other farm animals and can 

 often be produced in immense quantities, making it well worth 

 while for stock farmers to look into their culture. 



The main reason why roots are not grown more extensively in the 

 dairy sections of our country and elsewhere is that corn silage is 

 now a common feed on dairy and stock farms. Silage compares 

 favorably with roots as regards nutritive effect and can, as a rule, be 

 produced at less expense and in larger yields of dry matter per acre. 



Relative Yields of Roots and Silage. A number of experi- 

 ment stations have furnished data for a comparison of the yields 

 and the cost of production of roots and corn silage ; in these experi- 

 ments roots of different kinds were raised for one or more } r ears 

 under similar conditions as those for Indian corn. The following 

 table shows the average yields per acre of four kinds of root crops 

 and of Indian corn obtained in experiments at the Maine, Pennsyl- 

 vania, Ohio, and Ontario (Guelph) experiment stations: 

 Comparative Yields of Root Crops and Fodder Corn. 



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