FORAGE PLANTS AND THEIR CULTURE 



CHAPTER I 

 INTRODUCTION 



DOMESTIC animals are an indispensable part of a good 

 agriculture, even though they may have no place in the 

 business of some of the high-class specialty farmers. To 

 rear animals necessitates forage ; and the more important 

 the animal production, the greater is the necessity that the 

 forage be grown as a crop and be made a part of the farm 

 scheme. The forage crops are now of many kinds, and 

 they are taking their places in the regular farm-manage- 

 ment plans of the forward farmer. These crops also have 

 their own value as marketable products, constituting one 

 of the important cash incomes of the farm. 



1. Definitions. Forage includes any vegetable mat- 

 ter, fresh or cured, eaten by herbivorous animals, such 

 as grain, hay, pasturage, green feed, roots and silage. 

 The term feed is synonymous with forage, although some- 

 times restricted to grain. Fodder and stover are also 

 identical in original meaning, but in the United States are 

 used with special significations. 



Forage crops include only those plants grown primarily 

 for feed and of which animals consume all or much of the 

 vegetative parts ; that is, herbage, or roots. Most cereal 

 crops are also grown for hay, pasturage or silage, and 

 when thus grown may be considered forage crops. Sev- 

 eral plants cultivated in other regions as cereals are in the 

 United States grown mainly or wholly for forage. Among 



