July, 1933] 



Roughage Production in New Hampshire 



particularly youii^ stock, is the result of an accumulation during the 

 real's of high milk and cattle prices. The slump came too quickly for 

 unloading to take place. 



The season of 1930 was favorable to high yields of silage corn. The 

 usual applications of some commercial fertilizer and manure were 

 made. Some of the fertilizer was acid phosphate, applied either in the 

 stable gutter or at planting time. A few used some complete fertilizer. 

 Manure was applied at the rate of 19.5 tons per acre, of which it was 

 estimated 7.8 tons were used by the crop. It required 64.0 hours of man 

 labor and 64.5 hours of horse laboi- per acre to grow and harvest an 

 acre of silage corn. Of this, 25.6 hours were used to grow and 38.6 

 hours to harvest the crop. On the basis of the yield obtained it re- 

 cpiired 5.5 hours each of man and horse labor per ton, or 1.9 hours to 

 grow and 3.6 hours to harvest the crop. 



On these farms production of hay and silage provided for a ra- 

 tion of 1.78 tons of hay and 3.16 tons of silage per cattle unit per year. 



The inclusion of silage in the cropping system increases the stock- 

 carrying capacity per acre of tillage land. This can be taken ad- 

 vantage of by either having a larger herd — a very important factor 

 especially on the smaller farms — or by retaining the same sized herd, 

 utilizing the tillage land no longer needed for roughage, for cash crops 

 or for pasture. (Table 3.) 



Table 3. Cattle units per acre of roughage, and percentage of roughage 



area in silage. 



Cattle units Per cent. Cattle 



per acre roughage units . 



d£ roughage acreage in per farm 

 silage 



Hay 



Silage 



Acres 

 per farm 



Yield in 

 tons per acre 



Acres Yield in 



per farm tons per acre 



On the basis of the data obtained it requires about 2 acres of hay 

 alone to feed a cow for the year. It will roughly require about Vs 

 acre of silage to replace a ton of hay. For every ton of hay replaced 

 by silage an acre of hayland is released for silage production; or for 

 each acre of silage 3 acres of hay are released for other uses— -either 

 for cash crops or for pasture. An acre of silage has approximately 

 three times the total digestible feed units of an acre of hay. 



As may also be seen from Tables 3 and 4, yields of hay are greater 

 where silage has been included in the rotation, and are still greater 

 where the percentage of silage is increased. Quality is also better. This 

 is due partly to the shorter rotation necessary and partly to the greater 

 amount of organic matter in the manure applied for corn and from a 

 better sod to plow under, a condition which is accumulative. The 

 total effect of silage corn on carrying capacity of the land is shown 

 graphically in Figure 1. A close study of the distribution of the dots 

 in this scatter diagram shows a marked correlation between per cent, 

 of area in silage and carrying capacity. An increase of 5 per cent, in 



