60 ‘PRINCIPLES OF FEEDING FARM ANIMALS. 
What has been said in regard to alfalfa applies with equal force 
to other leguminous crops and also, to some extent, to other hay 
crops. These losses arise from two sources, fermentations and 
respiration in the plant cells, both of which are favored by warm, 
damp weather. Coarse plants with thick stems, the cells of which 
are not so rapidly killed on drying, like Indian corn and the sor- 
ghums, lose more feed: materials from the sources given under un- 
favorable weather conditions than fine-stemmed plants like the com- 
mon grasses that are readily dried. This explains how corn fodder 
left to cure in shocks will lose about 10 per cent of dry matter, even 
under ideal weather conditions, if standing in the field or kept 
under roof for a period of a month or more. Corn shocks of differ- 
ent sizes left for some months in the dry climate of Colorado lost 
from one-third to over one-half of their dry matter, the losses 
increasing with the size of the shocks.” In work by the author in 
Wisconsin which was continued for four years,"! the average losses 
of dry matter and crude protein in carefully shocked fodder corn 
left in the field from one to several months amounted to about 24 
per cent; similar results have been obtained in investigations con- 
ducted at a number of other experiment stations. 
Since losses like those given will occur in case ,of corn cured 
under cover with all possible care, it is evident that the average 
losses of dry'matter in field-cured fodder corn must be still higher 
under ordinary farm conditions. A careful study of the various 
experiments on this subject will readily show this to be the case 
(see p. 108). . . 
The Siloing Process.—The most important method of prepara- 
tion of feeding stuffs, next to hay-making, is the stloing process. 
The subject of the silo and silage will be discussed later (p. 149), and 
we shall here refer only to the changes that occur in the composi- 
tion of the plants during the process in so far as they affect the 
nutritive values of the feeding stuffs. During the early stages of 
building silos in this country very large losses occurred in them, 
due mainly to the form of silos built.. These were square and 
shallow structures which were poorly adapted for silage-making: 
First, because considerable air was left in the siloed mass and ad- 
mitted from corners. and leaky walls; and, second, because large 
amounts of silage spoiled while being fed out. The losses in feed 
materials found in the early silo experiments, therefore, would 
often go up to fifty per cent, and such results were also generally 
® Colorado Bulletin 30. 
4 Report 1891, p. 227; Agr. Science, vol. 10, p. 299. 
