566 



SERRADELLA 



Bulletin No. 69, p. 39 ; Bureau of Plant Industry, 

 Bulletins, No. 4, p. 17; No. 18, p, 68; No. 59, 

 pp. 51, 56. 



SERRADELLA. Ornithopus sativus, Brot. Legu- 

 minosw. Fig. 803. 



By C. V. Piper. 



Serradella is an annual forage and green-manure 

 plant growing six to eighteen inches high. The 

 leaves are odd-pinnate with numerous leaflets, and 

 the flowers are pale purplish. It has been culti- 

 vated in the United States only in an experimental 

 way, and it is not grown extensively in Europe. 

 There it is employed as a combination forage and 

 green -manure plant, particularly valuable to 

 precede potatoes or corn. It is eagerly eaten 

 by sheep and cattle and is comparable in value 

 to the clovers. It has no deleterious qualities 



Fig. 803. 



Serradella {Ornithopus 



sativus). 



whatever, when 

 fed either green as 

 pasture or as hay. At 

 the Massachusetts Ex- 

 periment Station, where it 

 was cultivated in rows, it 

 was fed in comparison with 

 cowpeas and vetches and 

 gave more satisfactory re- 

 sults than either of these for 

 dairy cows, in this agreeing 

 with the results of European 

 experience. For late pastur- 

 age it has given some promise in Michigan, espe- 

 cially on sandy lands. Owing to its relatively 

 small growth and light tonnage it has no place 

 where other legumes will grow, and is not likely 

 to find much use as a cultivated crop in this coun- 

 try, although in limited localities it may be valu- 

 able. Good, heavy stands yield ten to twelve tons 

 of green fodder per acre, which will make about 

 two tons of hay. 



Serradella is especially adapted to medium light, 

 sandy soils. Even where lime is deficient it thrives. 

 While it is fairly drought-resistant, it makes very 

 small growth under dry conditions. The- plant will 

 not withstand severe cold, and therefore should be 



SILAGE -CROPPING 



planted in the spring, at least in the northern 

 states. It may be seeded alone, or in small grain. If 

 planted alone it may be drilled in rows about five 

 inches apart. Forty to fifty pounds of seed per acre 

 will be needed, sown in March or April. As for 

 other legumes inoculation is important, and this 

 factor accounts at least in part for the poor results 

 obtained in many experiments. The growth is 

 slow until the advent of warm weather. About 

 the time the plant begins to bloom it tends to 



branch out rapidly and cover the 



ground. 



SILAGE-CROPPING : Its History, 



Processes and Importance. Figs. 

 804, 805. [See also page 414.] 



By J. W. Sanborn. 



No subject is of more commanding 

 importance in the corn-growing dairy 

 states than that of silage-cropping, oi 

 the raising of forage crops for preser^ 

 vation in the silo. So rapid has been 

 the recognition of the value of this method of pre- 

 serving green feeds, notably corn, that today in 

 the dairy sections one can scarcely find a farm 

 without its silo. Much yet remains to be learned 

 regarding the proper ordering of the ensiling pro- 

 cesses, but the silo has demonstrated its indispen- 

 sableness and has immovably intrenched itself in 

 the economy of the American dairy-farm. 



History. 



According to the researches of Professor 

 McBryde, silos reach back to Persian and Roman 

 times. Varro speaks of pits in the ground made 

 tight to exclude air and insects, and mentions their 

 use in Thrace, Carthage, Spain and Rome. While 

 the records mention the pitting of the grain crops 

 and forage crops, wheat having been kept in a 

 good state of preservation in the pits for fifty 

 years, yet McBryde, reasoning from historic data, 

 draws the conclusion that green crops were thus 

 preserved. 



While it is probable that we may not ascribe 

 with historic accuracy the use of pits for the pres- 

 ervation of green fodders by the ancients, there can 

 be no doubt that in the early decades of the last 

 century pitting of green crops was not unknown 

 to the farmers of several of the European nations. 

 These pits were dug as deep as twelve feet and 

 lined with brick, stone or wood. As now, the en- 

 siled or pitted material was heavily trodden and 

 well pounded around the edges of the pit. 



To M. Goffart, of France, belongs the honor' of 

 having adapted the preservation of green crops to 

 common modern use by storage above ground in 

 stone structures known as silos. The top of the 

 material was loaded by a following weight. Led 

 either by J. B. Brown's translation of Goffart's 

 work or by an earlier article on the system of 

 Goffort's trials that appeared in the Report of the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, a Mr. 

 Morris, of Maryland, built in 1876 the first silo in 

 this country. Soon after this. Dr. Bailey, of Bil- 



