PRESERVATION FOR STOCK FOOD 735 



potato a few years ago. People would willingly pay I OS. a CHAP. 

 pound for the seed, and every one would soon be growing it ! XV ' 

 Maize is a fodder grass that offers just such returns at 2-£d. the 

 pound for seed, yet most farmers do not think it worth the 

 trouble to find out what can really be done with it ; when its 

 possibilities are hinted at they answer : " Oh ! we know all 

 about the mielie ! " Why should there be this indifference to 

 the value of the most wonderful fodder crop on earth, the 

 world's "wonder-grass"? The reason is threefold: (1) Be- 

 cause the maize plant grows so easily that the average farmer 

 allows it to grow without care or attention, therefore com- 

 paratively few people ever see, or have any conception of, a 

 really good maize crop ; their only idea is of a crop such as 

 a Kaffir might grow. If the maize plant could not be grown 

 without as much care and attention as is given to the mangel 

 or onion, we should think more of it ! (2) Because maize 

 is an old and well-known crop it does not appeal to us as 

 an attractively advertised novelty would ; (3) because to pro- 

 duce a heavy crop of maize, the land must be well prepared 

 and fertilized, and the crop carefully cultivated, which un- 

 doubtedly requires work ; and it is human nature to be on 

 the lookout for the easy thing in life. We read of some novelty 

 (such as " Helianti") which purports to give large returns 

 without labour, and eagerly buy it, only to learn that the 

 advertisement has failed to note the universal truth about farm 

 crops, that no good crop of any kind can be produced except " by 

 the sweat of the brow" . 



But it has been well and truly said {Plumb, 1) that there 

 is no crop which will produce the same amount of equally 

 nutritious fodder from an acre of land, and at so small a cost, 

 as maize, and it will pay us to give it closer attention. Myrick 

 (1) points out that the maize plant, quite apart from the ear, 

 whether green or dry, is a palatable and healthful food for 

 horses and ruminants, and that the dry matter is more digestible 

 than that of timothy or clover hay. When properly prepared, 

 the food value of the dry matter is rather less, but with the 

 grain added, rather more than that of timothy hay. Investiga- 

 tions carried out at the Maryland (U.S.A.) Station by H. J. 

 Patterson (i) show that a crop of maize will produce over a ton 

 and a half (3,172 lbs.) of total digestible matter from an acre of 

 ground. 



