82 HARVESTING AND UTILIZING CORN 



worth a little less than one-half a ton of clover or alfalfa and about 

 three-fourths of a ton of timothy. It would not be desirable to re- 

 place all the hay ration with corn stover, but when hay is worth $10 

 or more a ton a part of the hay ration can profitably be substituted by 

 corn fodder. 



Harvesting Corn Fodder. Corn fodder is commonly har- 

 vested by hand (Fig. 30), where the acreage is small or the land is 

 rough. With ten acres or less to cut it would not pay to own a 

 binder, as the depreciation and interest on the binder (which costs 

 about $125) would increase the cost too much. However, one can 



FIG. 31. Harvesting corn with a corn binder. 



often hire a binder to do the cutting, at about the same cost as by 

 hand, with the additional advantage of having the fodder bound. 



Sled harvesters, costing from $5 to $15, are cheap and satisfac- 

 tory. These machines cut one or two rows at a time and are very 

 satisfactory where the corn is to be shocked and husked in the field. 

 Also" the harvesters built on the same principle, but mounted on 

 wheels, are in common use. 



Corn Harvesters and Binders. The attachment of a binding 

 apparatus to a corn harvester was first successfully applied about 

 1895. Since then the corn binder, as it is called, has generally 

 replaced other methods (Fig. 31). This is especially true where the 



