Indian Com as a Forage Plant. 175 



253. A new corn product. — The pitli of the corn stalk farnislies 

 a packing for the walls of vessels which will prevent the entrance 

 of water into the ship when the hull is pierced. It is found that 

 for each pound of suitable pith there are fifteen pounds of blades, 

 husks and stalks remaining as waste or by-products. It is pro- 

 posed to grind this waste into a meal for stock feeding. At the 

 Maryland Station, * Patterson found this new food substance more 

 digestible than whole fodder, in feeding trials with steers, and 

 quite satisfactory in comparison with com blades. Cows and steers 

 fed corn-stalk meal ruminated as naturally as if feeding on hay. 



254. The so-called corn-stalk disease. — In the central com dis- 

 tricts the common practice is to remove the ears of corn from the 

 standing stalks and turn cattle into the stalk fields to gather the 

 ears left by the buskers and consume what they will of the rough- 

 age. Not infrequently, within a day or two after turning the 

 cattle into the fields, they suddenly sicken and die. Thousands 

 of cattle are lost each fall in this way, and the subject has attracted 

 much attention and elicited several theories as to the cause. 

 Moore 2 concludes that the disease is probably due to some poison- 

 ous principle in the dried com stalk or its leaves. Without 

 being able to name a remedy, he prudently points a way by which 

 all danger from this source can be avoided. He calls attention 

 to the fact that the corn-stalk disease never attacks cattle fed 

 shock com or com stover. He recommends that the stockman 

 shock at least a portion of his corn crop and feed this to his cattle 

 instead of turning them into the stalk fields. Possibly, too, if 

 stockmen will feed shock corn to their cattle for a few days or 

 weeks previous to turning them into the stalk fields, the danger 

 may be averted, since by this practice the animals wUl become 

 accustomed to this form of feed. 



255. Corn smut. — Besides the direct losses caused by corn 

 smut, it has frequently been charged that the smut masses are 

 poisonous to cattle eating them. To settle this important matter, 

 a number of experiments have been conducted in which the smut 

 was fed to cattle and the effects noted. 



• Bui. 43. 



2 Bui. 10, Bur. of An. Ind., U. S. Dept Agr; see also Bui. 58, Kan. Sta. 



