CHAPTER VI 



HAY AND GREEN FEED 



The product of meadows may be fed immediately or 

 it may be preserved. If it is fed immediately, the process 

 is known as soiling, and crops grown for this purpose are 

 called soiling crops. To preserve forage it must be pro- 

 tected from decomposition or rotting. This may be 

 accomplished by removing a sufficient proportion of water 

 by drying, in which case the product is called hay. Or the 

 forage may be preserved green, the destructive decom- 

 position being prevented by the exclusion of the air. The 

 preserved product is then called silage. 



68. In the wide sense, hay is dried vegetation used as 

 food for animals. In this sense ripened buffalo-grass and 

 standing cornstalks, grazed during winter, are hay. In 

 the restricted sense, the word hay is applied to the cut 

 and dried or cured product of meadows, more particularly 

 the product of the smaller grasses and clovers. The coarse 

 hay of cornstalks and other large grasses is more often 

 called fodder. Ordinarily meadow hay is made by cutting 

 with a mower and allowing the cut material to lie in the 

 sun until partly dried, after which it is raked into wind- 

 rows, then placed in bunches or cocks and finally in 

 stacks or under a roof. The process is varied to suit con- 

 ditions. The object is to remove sufficient moisture to 

 (54) 



