CHAPTER VIII 



Crops for Special Farm Practices. Home Storage and 

 Keeping of Crops 



Different systems or plans of farming are expressed in the char- 

 acter of the cropping scheme ; and some of these schemes are so special 

 that they may be thrown together in a reference advice-book. 



Forage Crops 



Forage is herbage food, whether green or cured. The forage crops 

 are grasses (whether utilized in meadows, pastures, or otherwise), all 

 coarse natural grazing crops such as animals are likely to find provided 

 in nature, and miscellaneous roots and vegetative parts grown specifi- 

 cally for feeding purposes. They are distinguished from the threshed 

 grains and all manufactured products. It will be seen at once that 

 there are two cultural groups comprised in the class of forage crops, — 

 the group occupying the land for a series of years (meadows and pas- 

 tures), and the group comprising the annual-grown or biennial-grown 

 plants (as maize, cowpea, pea, millet, roots). These groups overlap, 

 however, so that no hard and fast line can be drawn between them. 



The word roughage is applied to the coarser forage products, as 

 maize, cowpeas, kafir; sometimes it is used as equivalent to forage. 



Fodder is practically equivalent to the word " forage," but is less 

 specific ; it is by some restricted to dried or cured forage. The word is 

 commonly used for the coarser kinds, in distinction from hay. 



Some of the leading forage crops are alfalfa, cabbage, the various 

 cereals, clovers, cowpea, kafir, maize or Indian corn, mangels, millet, 

 rape, soybean, sorghum, vetches. 



Soiling is the feeding of green harvested forage direct from the field to 

 the animals. The feed is carried to them. This system is distinguished 

 from pasturing. The animals are kept in small inclosures or in stalls, 

 and thereby their feed is regulated and the standing crop is not injured 

 by them. The term is probably derived from that use or origin of 

 the verb " to soil " that indicates to satisfy or to fill. 



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