FODDER CROPS AND PASTURES 165 



* 



seed which have been gathered take away most of the 

 valuable food compounds, leaving the straw dry and 

 hard. Straw can, however, be used to advantage as a 

 food, as will be explained later, and is also valuable as 

 a bedding for stock. Old or rotting straw forms a 

 valuable mulch for poor soils. 



155. Hay. — When grasses, clovers and similar crops 

 are cut green and dried in the sun they form what we 

 call hay. The hays formed by coarser grasses such 

 as corn and sorghum are called fodder, though they are 

 nothing more than hays. Hay differs from the original 

 green fodder in having lost nearly all of its moisture. 

 Hay, though apparently perfectly dry, contains on an 

 average about 10 per cent of moisture. Of course there 

 are many kinds of hay resulting from the many kinds 

 of forage plants, but we may divide hays into two 

 distil inu'lv, the hay of grasses and the 

 hay of legumes. 



156. Hay of Grasses. — There are many kinds of 

 grasses that may he grown for hay — grasses suitable to 

 different soils and climates. Among the best known hay 

 grasses are timothy, orchard grass, bluegrass, meadow 

 grasses, and, in the South, Bermuda grass. Two or 

 more kinds of grasses may be grown together, and 

 clover is often mixed with them. The hay from such 

 ■ mixture is called hay of mixed grasses. Most of 

 the grasses grown for hay are perennials; each year 

 the top dies to. the no -fare soil, but the next spring a 

 fresh growth is sent up by the roots. The grasses 

 grown for hay have much the same kind of roots as the 

 cereal crops and require for their production much the 



