Bureau of Agbioultueb. 235 



land was fertile, and the milk was to be sold at sixteen 

 cents a gallon. In our visit to this interesting small 

 farm, we found a farmer doing as well on eighty acres, 

 but getting a higher price for milk. ^Tien we visit such 

 farms we are almost convinced that this honest, able, 

 energetic and thrifty farmer was right when he said 

 "Most farmers have too much land and farm it badly." 



FORAaE PLANTS. 



BY 



H. Gabman, Entomologist and Botanist, 



Kentucky Agricultural Experiment Station, Lexington, 



Kentucky. 



The word forage may have a somewhat bookish and 

 scientific sound, but it is a good English word, which the 

 farmer can use to advantage at times in discussing prob- 

 lems with which he deals every day. We understand by 

 it simply feed for stock — com, oats, hay, silage, pastur- 

 age. Any food is forage, either for man or for beast. 

 But we are accustomed to style what we eat ourselves, 

 foods, and what our animals eat, feeds, though in many 

 cases foods are also feeds, and in some it would be dif- 

 ficult to say whether we received most benefit from the 

 food provided us by a forage plant, or from the feed 

 it furnishes our animals. Com is an example. It is a 

 splendid feed, and an excellent food. Oats is another. 

 Even wheat which we are accustpmed to regard as our 

 own special food plant, often provides grazing for stock, 

 and in the form of bran a nourishing feed. So it is im- 

 possible to draw a line between forage for man and 

 forage for beast. 



Yet we are accustomed to speak of forage as feed 

 for stock, and I shall endeavor in what follows to re- 

 strict myself very largely to those plants having value as 

 feed for the animals kept on the farm. 



While many plants of widely different plant fam- 

 ilies fumish some feed, two very distinct families pro- 



