FODDER CORN How CURED AND USED. 99 



tie or bind the top of the shock with a rye straw band, in such a way 

 as best to shed the rains. 



A letter to the Milwaukee Sentinel in June of 1883 says: "Hon. 

 Geo. F. "Lord, of Elgin, keeps 100 cows on 300 acres of land, and has 

 not raised a pound of hay for years. The corn is sowed in drills 

 three and one-half feet apart, and about the time it blossoms it is cut 

 with a self-raking reaper, cutting one row at a time, the machine 

 throwing it off in gavels. When sufficiently wilted it is bound and 

 set in large stacks and allowed to cure standing on the ground until 

 winter sets in, when it is hauled to the barn. He secures a yield of 

 about seven tons of cured fodder to the acre, worth as much as the 

 best hay. He is one of the most successful dairymen in Illinois. " 



In the latitude of New York, it will keep shocked in the open field 

 through the winter until spring. If it is not convenient to leave it in the 

 field after it is dried and cured, which is usually three or four weeks 

 after it is shocked, it should be bound up in sheaves and carted to the 

 barn, or stacked or put in sheds convenient to where it is to be used. 

 My plan in feeding is to run it through the cutter worked by horse 

 power, and mix it with cut hay, or peas and oats, and pulped or 

 crushed roots, adding a little salt. We cut enough at one time to 

 last for a week, unless the weather be warm, as the crushed roots 

 would then naturally ferment. The roots when pulped or crushed 

 are in the same condition as apples when they come from the cider 

 press. In this state, they saturate the cut fodder better than when 

 chopped up by the ordinary root cutter. A machine known as a 

 " Boot Pulper " is used almost exclusively for that purpose in Britain, 

 but I think few of them are in use here. For cutting roots for a few 

 cows, a useful cutter is made as follows: A heavy steel blade is made 

 in the shape erf a x and fitted to a strong handle; the roots are put 

 in a feed box and chopped up with it very quickly. About twenty- 

 five years ago when running a milk farm I steamed all the feed for 

 the cattle, but it was mixed in the same way. I found some ad- 

 vantage in the saving of feed, and, in fact, continued steaming up to 

 1876. While visiting Europe and consulting with stock raisers there, 

 I found they had abandoned steaming feed for their breeding animals, 

 and on my return home I made the change from steaming to this 

 mode of feeding, and have found it to be most beneficial, not only in 

 the saving of labor, but the stock do much better. The calves are 

 born stronger and healthier. The cows produce more butter, but not 

 so much milk, as when fed on steamed feed. 



Q. What is your estimate of the value for feeding purposes of 

 Timothy hay or Orchard Grass hay as compared with fodder corn? 



A. I consider fodder corn for feeding purposes to be more 



