60 PRINCIPLES OP FEEDING FARM ANIMALS 



What has been said in regard to alfalfa applies with equal force 

 to other leguminous crops and also, to some extent, to other hay 

 crops. These losses arise from two sources, fermentations and 

 respiration in the plant cells, both of which are favored by warm, 

 damp weather. Coarse plants with thick stems, the cells of which 

 are not so rapidly killed on drying, like Indian corn and the sor- 

 ghums, lose more feed materials from the sources given under un- 

 favorable weather conditions than fine-stemmed plants like the com- 

 mon grasses that are readily dried. This explains how corn fodder 

 left to cure in shocks will lose about 10 per cent of dry matter, even 

 under ideal weather conditions, if standing in the field or kept 

 under roof for a period of a month or more. Corn shocks of differ- 

 ent sizes left for some months in the dry climate of Colorado lost 

 from one-third to over one-half of their dry matter, the losses 

 increasing with the size of the shocks. 10 In work by the author in 

 Wisconsin which was continued for four years, 11 the average losses 

 of dry matter and crude protein in carefully shocked fodder corn 

 left in the field from one to several months amounted to about 24 

 per cent; similar results have been obtained in investigations con- 

 ducted at a number of other experiment stations. 



Since losses like those given will occur in case of corn cured 

 under cover with all possible care, it is evident that the average 

 losses of dry matter in field-cured fodder corn must be still higher 

 under ordinary farm conditions. A careful study of the various 

 experiments on this subject will readily show this to be the case 

 (seep. 108). 



The Siloing Process. The most important method of prepara- 

 tion of feeding stuffs, next to hay-making, is the siloing process. 

 The subject of the silo and silage will be discussed later (p. 149), and 

 we shall here refer only to the changes that occur in the composi- 

 tion of the plants during the process in so far as they affect the 

 nutritive values of the feeding stuffs. During the early stages of 

 building silos in this country very large losses occurred in them, 

 due mainly to the form of silos built. These were square and 

 shallow structures which were poorly adapted for silage-making: 

 First, because considerable air Was left in the siloed mass and ad- 

 mitted from corners and leaky walls; and, second, because large 

 amounts of silage spoiled while being fed out. The losses in feed 

 materials found in the early silo experiments, therefore, would 

 often go up to fifty per cent, and such results were also generally 



10 Colorado Bulletin 30. 



"Report 1891, p. 227; Agr. Science, vol. 10, p. 299. 



