CORN COMPOSITION 99 



97. Parts of the corn plant. — Corn stover is the residue 

 of stalk, leaf, and shuck after the removal of the ear. Corn 

 fodder is the entire plant when grown thickly and cured for 

 forage. Corn blades, very generally known in the South 

 simply as " fodder," are the leaves stripped from the plant 

 just before the ears mature. The blades make a very 

 palatable and -nutritious food, but the yield is small, the 

 labor of harvesting considerable, and the stripping of the 

 blades reduces the 'yield of grain. 



Corn stover, when shredded, has somewhat the same 

 value as cotton-seed hulls, the composition of the stover 

 being superior but the hulls mixing better with concentrated 

 foods and being eaten with much less waste. Stover 

 should be fed in connection with cotton-seed meal or other 

 food rich in protein. 



Corn silage consists of the entire plant cut, while still 

 green but after the roasting-ear stage, into short lengths 

 and stored in an air-tight compartment, called a silo. Here 

 it keeps with but slight loss and in green, succulent condi- 

 tion until winter. This is the best way to utilize the corn 

 crop for dairy cattle, and often for fattening cattle. 



Silage is the material that is stored ; silo is the receptacle in 

 which it is stored ; ensilage is the verb, as " to ensilage corn," 

 with the accent on the middle syllable. The terms are variously 

 used and confused in current speech and writing, however. 



98. Proportion of parts in the corn plant. — The Georgia 

 Experiment Station (Bui. No. 30) found that in every 

 100 pounds of the above-ground part of the corn plant, 

 after being thoroughly air-dried, 



the grain constituted . 38.8 per cent, the shucks .11.1 per cent, 

 the stalks .... 29.3 per cent, the tassels . 1.3 per cent, 

 the blades .... 9.8 per cent, and the cobs 9.7 per cent. 



