CORN FOR CATTLE 



359 



lo pounds per acre, at the last cultivation, produces, if the stand of 

 corn is thin, a large amount of succulent feed for early fall grazing. 

 Very little grain is wasted by this method and the manure is left in 

 the field. 



Corn, as a part of the ration of breeding ewes, should be omitted. 

 If any one feed has kept the English mutton breed out of Iowa and 

 Missouri, up to this time, it is corn. Until it is either supplemented 

 or else replaced entirely, a healthy lamb drop cannot be expected. The 

 corn ration of i -.^.y is too wide compared with i :5.6, which has 

 proved the best. 



FOR MILCH COWS. As a grain, corn lacks both the protein 

 and ash which are so essential to milk production. The nutritive ra- 

 tion for heavy producing cows is i :4.s, which is about one-half as 

 wide as corn itself. No doubt the extensive feeding of corn on the 

 farms in the corn belt accounts in a measure for the low milk produc- 

 tion per cow in that district. The cow requires her carbonaceous con- 

 stituents in the form of bulk or roughage and the protein in concen- 

 trates. 



The usual farm rations of corn and corn fodder (1:15), or of tim- 

 othy and corn (1:12) are entirely too wide. With the use of alfalfa, 

 however, a ratio somewhere near the proper amount of protein is 

 secured. 



FOR YOUNG CATTLE. As corn will necessarily have to b" 

 'argely used in the corn belt for winter beef calves and yearlines 

 which are intended for finishing when older, two rations taken from 

 *Smith are given, figured on a basis of 500-pound calf. 



Too often calves are stunted on a ration of corn and highly car- 

 bonaceous roughage. However, corn being economical, the thing to 

 do is to balance it as well as possible with some home-grown rough- 

 age. 



As a rule, when feeding on pastures of short rotation, there is 

 sufficient clover present to warrant the feeding of corn alone as a grain 



*Profitablii Stock Feeding by H. R. Smith, Page 160. 



