PART III— FORAGE CROPS 



CHAPTER X 

 INTRODUCTION 



324. Definitions. A forage crop is any crop the leaves 

 or stems or both of which are used either green or dried for 

 feeding to stock. The green plants may be grazed, when 

 they constitute pasture, or they may be cut and fed green, 

 as a soiling crop. The practice of feeding in this manner is 

 called soiling. Hay is the cured or dried stems and leaves 

 of the finer grasses and other forage plants. Fodder is the 

 cured stems and leaves of corn, sorghum, or other coarse « 

 plants, cut just before maturity and fed without removing 

 the grain. Stover is corn or other fodder from which the 

 grain has been removed. Straw is the stems and leaves of 

 grain crops from which the seed has been removed; it cor- 

 responds to the stover of the corn plant. Certain forage 

 plants, of which corn is the principal one, may be cut green 

 and stored in a tight enclosure built for the purpose (a silo), 

 or occasionally they may be stacked without curing. In 

 either case, the product is known as silage. 



A grass is any member of the great order of plants known 

 as the Gramineae, which includes not only the grasses as we 

 commonly know them, but the cereals and many weedy 

 plants as well. In the narrower sense in which it is com- 

 monly used, the term includes only the meadow and pasture 

 plants of this family, though it is sometimes used as a general 

 term for any plant grown in meadows or pastures, whether 

 a true grass or not. A legume is a plant of the other great 



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