HAMPSHIRE COUNTY FARMERS' MONTHLY 



ductive efficiency, say eight to ten thou- 

 sand pounds per year. Maybe all of us 

 will have roughage of that kind and cows 

 of that kind at some time in the future. 

 At present, most of us are more interest- 

 ed in feeding the kind of roughage which 

 we have, or can produce with .some cer- 

 tainty, to the kind of cows which we 

 have. 



Unfortunately the kinds of roughage 

 which we should particularly like to 

 have, clover and alfalfa, are difficult and 

 uncertain crops to produce in this region 

 of acid soils of rather low fertility and. 

 at best, cannot be produced in quantity 

 short of several years of preparatory 

 work in building up the fertility of the 

 soil and establishing new seedings. The 

 sooner a start is made toward growing 

 these better crops the sooner we shall get 

 into a permanently better condition with 

 respect to the supply of home-grown 

 roughage, but even so, they hold no 

 promise of immediate relief of the home- 

 grown roughage shortage which seems 

 clearly indicated for the coming winter. 



The only practicable hope of producing 

 more feed in time to help the situation 

 next winter lies in utilization of certain 

 annual crops which can be grown quickly, 

 at relatively small expense and with but 

 little risk of failure. These crops except 

 peas and oats and soy beans, do not com- 

 pare favorably with clover and alfalfa 

 as daii-y feeds, but they do have much 

 higher value than is generally appre- 

 ciated, as shown in the following table. 

 They are not to be recommended to a 

 man who has plenty of hay without them 

 but they do fit in where the hay crop is 

 short and time and land are available to 

 produce them. Any of them will exceed 

 an average crop of hay in the production 

 of nutrients per acre and an acre of any 

 of them will substitute for more than a 

 ton of grain in feeding the herd. The 

 cost of production admittedly is high 

 compared to hay, in consequence of which 

 they are recommended mainly as emer- 

 gency crops to be grown when the hay 

 <;rop threatens to fall short. 



Nutrients Produced by Emergency 

 Roughage Crops 



THE SOY BEAN THE BEST EMERGENCY HAY CROP 



Prof. .J. B. Abbott practices what he preaches. He is standing in part of a 

 four acre field of soy beans grown on his farm last year. Planted May 28, rows 

 20 inches apart, cut Sept. 3, yield 2 tons of hay per acre. He is planting 10 

 acres this year. The article below tells how he did it. 



The soy bean, in some of its endless 

 varieties, is the emergency hay crop ; 

 par excellence for any region where corn j 

 will grow. It succeeds on a wide range I 

 of soils, is as easy and dependable a crop 

 to grow as oats, millet or fodder corn, 

 yields well and is approximately as 

 valuable a hay as alfalfa. In fact, some 

 feeding trials and the chemical composi- 

 tion of the crop indicate that it is even 

 better than alfalfa. Its approximate 

 equality to alfalfa and vast superority 

 over the grass hays as a feed for dairy 

 cows is clearly shown in the following 

 data from Henry and Morrison's compi- 

 lations. 



Digestible 

 Protein 



Total 

 Digestible 

 Nutrients 



** For Comparison 



Soy bean hay 11.17% 53.6% 



Alfalfa hay 10.6 51.6 



Timothy hay 3.0 48.5 



' The soy bean is not a wholly unknown 

 crop to Massachusetts farmers as it was 

 somewhat aggressively pushed as a com- 

 panion crop with corn for silage a few 

 years ago. In the opinion of the writer 

 and apparently as in the opinion of 

 Massachusetts farmers, who mostly 

 dropped the soy bean after trying it with 

 corn once or twice, the plant is not of 

 ' particular value for that purpose. That, 

 , however, does not condemn it for some 

 other and more suitable use. 



Neither the soy bean nor any other an- 

 nual crop is, or can be, a serious competi- 

 tor with a successful crop of any of the 

 standard hays, solely on the basis of com- 

 parative costs of production, but that is 

 not the point at issue. The point is to 

 find the best all around, quick-action, 

 sure-fire emergency hay crop to be grown 

 when clover fails or when the hay crop 

 I threatens to be short. That is where the 

 ' soy bean shines and that is why there 

 ought to be 25,000 acres grown in Massa- 

 chusetts this year. 



It is a demonstrated fact that any land 

 capable of producing ten tons of silage 

 corn per acre will produce one and one- 

 half to two and one-half tons of soy 

 bean hay per acre and that that hay, 

 except for the perhaps five to seven per- 

 cent of coarse stems which will be re- 

 jected by well fed cows, is the full equal 

 of alfalfa in every respect. And the crop 

 is easy to grow, little if any harder to 

 cure than an equally heavy yield of red 

 clover, will stand many times the amount 

 of rain during the curing without serious 

 injury and leaves the land in splendid 

 shape for seeding down the following 

 spring without plowing. 



Cultural Directions 



Order a bushel of seed per acre right 

 away: Manchu if you can plant early 

 enough to be sure of 100 days before you 

 will want to cut the crop or Ito San if 

 you need something a little earlier. The 

 Eastern States Farmers' Exchange han- 

 dles both. Arrange with the county 

 agent for a supply of inoculating soil — 

 about four quarts for each bushel of 

 seed. It would be well also to provide 

 for 200 pounds of acid phosphate per 

 acre. 



Prepare a seed bed as for corn, using 

 a little manure if available. Harrow and 

 drag until the seed bed is fine, firm and 

 free from trash. This latter is especial- 

 ly important if you value your peace of 

 mind, your crop when you come to cul- 

 tivate and your mowing machine when 

 you come to harvest. Plant at corn plant- 

 ing time if possible and in any event be- 

 fore the middle of June, setting the com 

 planter to drop five or six beans per foot 

 of row with a bare trickle of acid phos- 

 phate. 



If you are so constituted that you must 



cultivate one row at a time in order to 



be really happy, put the rows far enough 



apart so that you can do it, but if you 



Continued on page 11. column 1 



