CHAPTER XIV 
ROOTS, TUBERS, AND OTHER SUCCULENT FEEDS 
Root crops are grown for stock feeding to only a relatively 
limited extent in this country. There can be no question as to their 
value for this purpose; all agree that they are highly nutritious 
feeds and greatly relished by farm animals. The main objection 
to their use is the cost and the difficulty of growing them. It may 
be that this objection is, in general, well founded, and that there 
are crops equally valuable as stock feeds that can be grown with 
less labor and expense, e.g., corn in the central and eastern States, 
and alfalfa in the West, to mention only those two important forage 
crops. But roots have a special place to fill in the feeding of live- 
stock. They have a very beneficial effect on the health and the 
production of milch cows, ewes, and other farm animals and can 
often be produced in immense quantities, making it well worth 
while for stock farmers to look into their culture. 
The main reason why roots are not grown more extensively in the 
dairy sections of our country and elsewhere is that corn silage is 
now a common feed on dairy and stock farms. Silage compares 
favorably with roots as regards nutritive effect and can, as a rule, be 
produced at less expense and in larger yields of dry matter per acre. 
Relative Yields of Roots and Silage.—A number of experi- 
ment stations have furnished data for a comparison of the yields 
and the cost of production of roots and corn silage; in these experi- 
ments roots of different kinds were raised for one or more years 
under similar conditions as those for Indian corn. The following 
table shows the average yields per acre of four kinds of root crops 
and of Indian corn obtained in experiments at the Maine, Pennsyl- 
vania, Ohio, and Ontario (Guelph) experiment stations: 
Comparative Yields of Root Crops and Fodder Corn. 
Yield of root crops per acre Yields cera core 
‘Total ’ Dry Green Dry 
weight, matter, substance, matter, 
pounds pounds pounds pounds 
Rutabagas............ 37,240 | 4146 34,200 5600 
Mangels.............. 85,120 3550 30,200 5920 
TUIMIPS. 6 es eves eee 37,310 3470 34,169 5608 
Sugar beets........... 25,300 4003 30,200 5900 
Averages......... 33,740 3792 32,190 5757 
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