768 MAIZE 



chap, above the ground level and allowed to settle for a day or two 



XV. 



it is then covered with a layer of soil about a foot deep and 

 evenly spread to give the necessary pressure and to exclude 

 air. The silage can be kept indefinitely in the pit, or feeding 

 can commence (if the latter is kept sealed) in about two 

 months. 



742A. The American Cornstalk Disease. — In the central 

 maize districts of the United States many farmers continue to 

 follow the old practice of picking by hand the ears from the 

 standing stalks, turning the cattle into the stalk fields to 

 gather the stray ears left by the huskers, and to eat what they 

 like of the maize leaves and stalks, and the weeds found 

 among them. 



"Not infrequently, within a day or two after turning the 

 cattle into the fields, they suddenly sicken and die. Thousands 

 of cattle are lost each fall in this way, and the subject has 

 attracted much attention and elicited several theories as to the 

 cause." l Moore concludes that " the disease is probably due 

 to some poisonous principle in the dried cornstalk or its 

 leaves".'-' This disease is commonly known as "cornstalk 

 disease ". 



Moore {ibid.') points out that animals which are fed with 

 shocked maize, or cut maize stover, do not get cornstalk disease. 

 Brimhall :: considered that the so-called " cornstalk disease " 

 is in a large percentage of cases to be included under hemor- 

 rhagic septicaemia, which he traces to Bacillus booisepticus. 



Price reported the presence of an enzyme in cornstalks 

 from a field where cattle had died of cornstalk disease ; " this 

 peroxydase had the properties of catalase ; it lost its power of 

 splitting up glucosides when subjected to a temperature of 

 78 C. The proteolytic enzyme was broken up at 68" C. 

 The cornstalk enzyme appeared to have the same resisting 

 power toward heat as that obtained from bitter almonds." 

 Negative results were obtained from attempts to find either 

 prussic acid or a glucoside which might break up into prussic 

 acid. Although not conclusive, Price believes that his in- 



1 U.S.D.A., Bur. An. hid. Bull. 10. See also Kansas Station Bull. 5S. 

 1J Henrv, Feeds and Feeding, p. 175. 



1 See £ v/>. vS7d. Kir.. XIV, 201 (1902-3); XVI, 603-4 (1904-5); and Report 

 A tin Vet, Dep. of the Minn. State Bd. of Health, 1903, St, Paul, 1903. 



