414 



MAIZE 



MAIZE 



Corn smut (UstUago zem) does some injury to 

 almost every corn-field. It reduces the total yearly 

 corn production of the United States by perhaps 

 2 per cent, or, in other words, reduces the in- 

 come from our farms twenty million dollars 

 each year. Treatment of the seed is of no 

 avail. The brown or black spore clusters that 

 form in huge masses on different parts of the 

 corn plant contain millions of spores which do 

 not affect other plants directly, but which 

 carry the fungus through the winter and 

 grow in manure or decaying vegetation, form- 

 ing other spores which start the disease in the 

 next year's crop. They gain entrance at any 

 point where the tissue is tender and growing, 

 and especially easily where the tissue is 

 broken. The best known means of prevention 

 is burning the infected plants and crop rota- 

 tion. Corn-stalk manure should not be applied in 

 the spring to land that is to be planted with corn 

 that season. (Fig. 625.) 



Remedies. — It is very fortunate that crop rotation 

 and fall-plowing, two of the leading features of 

 good soil treatment, should also be the best-known 

 methods of preventing depredations from the most 

 destructive corn pests. Depredations from cut- 

 worms, webworms, corn root-worms, wireworms, 

 the corn root-louse, stalk-borers, corn bill-bugs, and 

 corn smut are prevented successfully by crop 

 rotation and fall-plowing. 



Maize-Growing for the Silo. [See also Silage.] 



By Jared Van Wagenen, Jr. 



The ensiling of cattle foods may be defined as 

 the preservation of green or moist forage products 

 by packing them in bulk in such a way that the 

 subsequent heating shall expel the air and check 

 the processes of decay, so that the forage will re- 

 main green and succulent and wholesome, and be 

 practically unchanged after the first fermentation 

 has run its course. The success of the process de- 

 pends partly on the fact that the heat of the initial 



The history of ensiling in Europe and America 

 affords an excelleht example of the evolution of 

 agricultural methods. At times the practice has 

 been subjected to sweeping condemnation and at 



Fig. 632. A hanrest of 10,000 bushels of com, on farm of H. 

 B. Woodbury near Cawker City, Kansas. The product 

 of 200 acres. 



fermentation is so great that many of the germs 

 of decay are killed, and partly to the oxygen, 

 which is entangled in the mass, being replaced by 

 the carbonic acid gas that is formed and that acts 

 as a bar to further changes. 



Fig. 633. Old-fashioned rail cam-ciibs. 



other times it has suffered from over -zealous 

 friends. The idea has been prominently before the 

 agricultural world for twenty -five years, and 

 ensiling may now be said to have become a settled 

 practice in all dairy-farming, and to a less extent 

 in beef- and sheep-feeding operations. Its highest 

 development has been reached in those dairy com- 

 munities which lie in the northern part of the 

 corn-belt. 



Corn as a silage crop. 



The corn plant, with its large, solid, succulent 

 stalks which do not air-dry easily but which ensile 

 very readily, is preeminently the silage plant, and 

 throughout the great dairy sections of the North 

 most of the corn is handled through the silo. At 

 one time or another ensiling has been recommended 

 as a method of handling all the following crops -. 

 Corn, clovers, alfalfa, meadow grasses, cowpeas, 

 soybeans, Canada field - peas, sorghum, sunflower, 

 millet, and, in fact, all crops used for forage, apple 

 pomace, beet pulp, and canning - house refuse of 

 various kinds. These have been ensiled with more 

 or less success, but never with advantage over 

 corn. Sometimes some of them are used to advan- 

 tage with corn, as the last cutting of alfalfa. But 

 corn has been and is likely to continue to be the 

 peer among crops for the ^lo. It loses somewhat 

 in feeding value when put in the silo, but with 

 proper care the loss need be very little, — 4 to 8 

 per cent of the dry matter. In any event, it is less 

 than when the fodder is cured in the field. 



Silo constriLction. 



It is of interest in this connection to mention 

 briefly the evolution of silo construction. In its 

 earliest development in Europe, the silo took the 

 form of stacks of wet grass or ricks covered with 

 earth. In the United States it was first a walled 

 pit in the earth and later a masonry structure 

 above ground, and it was thought essential, after 

 filling, to weight the mass very heavily, often with 

 stones or barrels of sand. These methods have now 

 only historical interest. The wooden silo may be 

 said to have passed from a square or rectangular 

 structure, built like a barn frame, having double 

 boarding with tarred paper between, to a cribbed- 

 up hexagon or octagon, and then to a structure of 



