73 T 



leguminous hays such as clover hay, alfalfa hay, cowpea hay and soy 

 bean hay has led to the general adoption of these hays, when the price 

 is not prohibitive, in preference to the non-leguminous roughages 

 such as timothy hay, oat straw, corn stover, etc. That this practice is 

 correct is borne out by a vast store of experimental data 1 in which 

 the legumes have been compared with non-legumes with the almost 

 universal result that the former have proven far more efficient for 

 producing gains which were usually made at a lower cost. A large 

 number of these trials were made before a concentrated nitrogenous 

 supplement was commonly used in the ration. Since nitrogenous sup- 

 plements have come into more common use the advisability of neg- 

 lecting the cheap non-leguminous roughages such as oat straw and 

 corn stover in favor of the higher priced leguminous hays has been 

 questioned. This is especially true in view of the fact that corn 

 silage when fed in connection with cottonseed meal has invariably 

 given better results at this station than when clover hay alone was fed 

 as roughage. Trials made in the winters of 1909-10 and 1910-11 and 

 reported in Bulletin No. 153 led to the conclusion that cattle receiving 

 a full feed of silage desire some form of dry roughage. The small 

 amount of clover hay eaten in a ration of silage indicated that the 

 benefit to be derived from it lay more in the satisfying of the appe- 

 tites of the cattle for some form of dry roughage rather than in the 

 food nutrients furnished. If this is the case, a non-leguminous 

 roughage such as oat straw or corn stover would serve the same pur- 

 pose as clover hay. The trials reported in Part II of this bulletin 

 were planned to give information on this phase of the question. 



The cattle used in the test were two years old, and are described 

 on page 717. Four lots of ten steers each were fed as follows : 



Lot i. Shelled corn, cottonseed meal 2.5 pounds daily per 1000 

 pounds live weight, corn silage (evening) clover hay (morning). 



Lot 4. Shelled corn, cottonseed meal 2.5 pounds daily per 1000 

 pounds live weight, corn silage (morning and evening), clover hay 

 (morning). 



Lot 5. Shelled corn, cottonseed meal 2.5 pounds daily per 1000 

 pounds live weight, corn silage (evening), oat straw (morning). 



Lot 6. Shelled corn, cottonseed meal 2.5 pounds daily per 1000 

 pounds live weight, corn silage (morning and evening), oat straw 

 (morning). 



Lots i and 4 have been discussed under Part I. The only dif- 

 ference between the rations of Lots i and 5 and between those of 

 Lots 4 and 6 was that in Lots 5 and 6 oat straw replaced the clover 

 hay of Lots i and 4. The effect of the ration on the appetites of 

 the steers is shown in Table VI. 



1 Purdue Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletins Nos. 115 and 136. Nebraska Agri- 

 cultural Experiment Station Bulletins Nos. 85, 90, 100 and 116. Missouri Agricultural 

 Experiment Station Bulletins Nos. 75 and 76 



