542 THE SMALL GRAINS 



584. Wheat for silage. In the western states, during 

 the dry summer months, there is great need of a succulent 

 feed for stock before corn can be used. This need ap- 

 pears now to be met, at least partially, in the form of 

 wheat as silage. Wheat has already been employed in 

 this way successfully in eastern Washington. Jones 

 Winter Fife is said to be the best variety, for the pur- 

 pose, in that state. Usually vetch is sown with the wheat, 

 and the two crops harvested together, while green, at the 

 period when the wheat kernels are in the " milk " stage. 

 If the wheat is grown alone, it may be cut and bound with 

 the self-binder, but if it is grown with vetch, a mower 

 must be used, as the vetch tangles the crop. The wheat 

 is cut into half-inch lengths in preparation for the silo. 

 It is spread evenly in the silo, thoroughly tramped, and 

 is sometimes wet down with water during the filling, to 

 exclude air. 



585. Feeding the whole grain. The practice of sell- 

 ing all the small grains, except a small quantity of oats 

 reserved for the draft horses, and feeding corn, becomes 

 so fixed a habit that the value of the former for stock 

 feeding is usually not fully appreciated. In years of a 

 large crop of wheat or other small grain and correspond- 

 ingly low prices, the profits in feeding are made more 

 manifest. Such a condition occurred in 1893-4 with 

 respect to the wheat crop. In Kansas alone, over four 

 million bushels of wheat were fed to farm animals in 1893, 

 more than 16 per cent of the entire crop. From the ex- 

 perience of that and the following year it was concluded 

 that (1) wheat is superior to corn, pound for pound, as a 

 grain to produce healthful, well-balanced growth ; (2) that 

 mixed with corn, oats, or bran it is much superior to either 

 alone for work horses ; and that (3) corn is scarcely to be 



