PREPARING FOODS FOR FEEDING 353 



with the exposure to these influences. Legumes suffer the 

 most readily from exposure to rain and dews, and corn fod- 

 ders are more easily harmed than sorghum. Legumes ex- 

 posed to much sunshine and to frequent wetting, at length 

 become almost valueless as food. The grasses, proper, will 

 suffer much less from such exposure and sorghum much 

 less than the grasses. 



The loss of moisture is excessive when it goes beyond 

 the point at which the plants will keep without harm when 

 stored. Loss of moisture virtually means loss of succu- 

 lence. Plants fed in the natural condition are more bene- 

 ficial to animals than the same plants fed in equal quan- 

 tity in the dry condition. Were it not so, succulence in 

 foods would have no specific value. Thus it is that hay, 

 lying exposed for a long season on the ground, even in the 

 entire absence of rain and with little exposure to dew, will 

 at length become comparatively valueless for food, not- 

 withstanding that when it was first cut it was possessed of 

 high feeding value. It also explains why the desire is so 

 prevalent to put corn in large shocks in the field after it has 

 been husked, although other reasons may, and do exert an 

 influence in favor of the practice. The fact, however, must 

 not be lost sight of, that the mistake of storing fodders so 

 little cured, that they heat so much as to make them dusty, 

 the feeding value becomes greatly impaired, and if stored so 

 uncured as to induce mould, to feed them even in moderate 

 degree is attended with more or less of hazard to the health 

 and it may be to the life of the animals. 



Storing foods. The proper storing of foods calls for 

 attention: (i) To protect them from injury which follows 

 undue exposure while yet in the fields, (2) to protect them 

 from injury after storage, whether from exposure or from 

 storing while yet undercured, and (3) to placing them in 

 storage where they will be convenient for feeding. 



All kinds of fodder suffer harm and loss, and increas- 

 ingly so, with increase in the duration of the exposure sub- 

 sequent to that time when they are ready for being stored. 



