56 SECOND THOUSAND QUESTIONS IN AGRICULTURE 



very dry, but it has begun to warm, and I should like to know whether I 

 should take it out and stack in the open. If so, what is the proper way 

 to pile it to protect it from weather? 



If the corn becomes hot enough several feet from the surface, to be 

 very uncomfortable for the hand, better throw a large part of it out 

 quickly and open the barn for all the circulation possible. Watch the 

 temperature in the center, for if it gets too hot to hold your hand in, you 

 will likely have spontaneous combustion. Otherwise would leave it in. 

 To stack corn fodder make a bed of straw on a well-drained spot to 

 keep fodder from ground. Then lay several bundles lengthwise of the 

 stack to raise the center of the rest of the fodder, which should be laid 

 in two rows with butts outward, the tassel ends overlapping to keep the 

 center always higher than the outer ends of the bundles, to make the 

 stack shed rain. Top off with a single row two layers deep along center 

 of the stack, finishing the ends with butts sloping outward and down- 

 ward. Straw on top of that will help keep it dry. Don't tramp it much, 

 because that will break and waste the leaves. For convenience in using 

 the fodder later, stack it as high as you can in short benches, one at a 

 time. Then, taking fodder off one bench at a time from the end last 

 stacked, none of it will bind the next bench. 



California Grass-Nut Pasture. 



/ send some bulbs which grow very thickly in adobe overflow land 

 and have a remarkable forage value for hogs after a hay crop; they are 

 locally called "grass nuts," "wild onions," etc. 



The bulbs belong to the plant known botanically as Brodiaea laxa. 

 The stems which grow from these bulbs in the spring of the year become 

 one or two feet high, and each is topped with a cluster of ten to twenty- 

 five showy purplish flowers. The leaves are very narrow and slender, 

 and grow only from near the base of the stem. The so-called bulb is, 

 strictly speaking, a corm that is, a thickened underground stem struc- 

 ture. They grow abundantly in adobe fields and hillsides of western Cali- 

 fornia, where they are known, especially in Mendocino county, as "high- 

 land potatoes." One investigator estimated that two hundred of them 

 would often occur in a single square foot of ground. Their value for 

 hog feeding is therefore great. They are sweet and contain considerable 

 starch and sugar and are especially valuable for fattening. There can 

 be no danger in the utilization of "grass nuts," unless bulbs of the "death 

 camas" should be eaten by mistake. These, however, are not solid as are 

 the grass nut corms, but consist of concentric layers as in the common 

 onion. They are also readily distinguished by the flowers, which are 

 white and are arranged in elongated panicles instead of rounded clusters, 

 as in the case of the "grass nuts." Furthermore, death camas does not 

 occur in heavy clay soil, but is restricted to the moist swales of meadows 

 and stream banks. H. M. Hall, Professor of Economic Botany, 

 University of California. 



