60 THE 



Grass is the first crop to be considered; but it is so im- 

 portant in its several uses, and there are so many vahiable 

 kinds of it, that a special chapter should be devoted to it. 



Fodder Corn follows grass in rank as a feeding crop, 

 either green for summer use, or preserved as ensilage, or 

 dried and cured for winter use. It is one of the most 

 productive and nutritious plants when properly grown 

 and cultivated. It has yielded from twenty-four to forty 

 tons of green, and five to eight tons of cured fodder. It 

 requires rich land and good cultivation, however, to make 

 this yield ; but on poor land helped by artificial fertilizers 

 a very profitable yield can be made. In such a case a 

 poor sandy farm which was badly run down produced, 

 with 600 pounds of special corn manure to the acre, 

 twenty-four tons of Evergreen sweet corn and twelve tons 

 of Early Narragansett sweet corn per acre. It is quite pos- 

 sible to grow both of these crops on the same ground the 

 same season ; for tlie early corn will be ready for cutting 

 in fifty days from planting, and the later kind planted 

 in July will mature in Sej^tember, thus giving thirty- 

 six tons of green fodder, or eight tons of cured fodder, 

 per acre. It is this rapid growth which makes the crop 

 so valuable. 



Fodder corn has acquired a bad reputation by reason 

 of the mistaken manner of growing it; viz., by broad- 

 casting the seed at the rate of two or three bushels per 

 acre, by which the crop is so crowded that it makes a 

 pale, watery, rank forage, quite devoid of nutriment and 

 worth but little more than wood shavings. Cows have 

 been known to reject fodder thus grown, which is a con- 

 vincing proof of their natural sagacity. 



When grown in rows three feet apart, and with four to 

 six seeds dropped eighteen inches apart, the fodder is 

 entirely different. It is green in color, mature in its 

 growth, full of sweetness, and a large proportion of the 

 stalks will have ears in what is known as the roastinic 



