190 INDIAN CORN CULTURE. 



doubt that it produces a larger weight of green food than any 

 other crop raised in the United States except, perhaps,^ sor- 

 ghum, and this renders its study as a soiling crop of the 

 highest importance. * * * It is a most desirable crop, as 

 it can be fed in combination with clover, oats, and peas, and 

 other more nitrogenous food. The largest crops may be 

 grown with the large Western or Southern varieties of field 

 corn; and next to these. Mammoth sweet corn and Stowell's 

 Evergreen sweet corn. The quality of the sweet varieties is 

 better than the field varieties. The greatest amount of de- 

 sirable nutriment is obtained by planting in drills 32 inches 

 apart, so that the corn can be thoroughly cultivated. The 

 sweet corn will then grow ears upon a large proportion of the 

 stalks, and these ears in the soft state greatly improve the 

 quality of the food for both fattening and milk production. 

 When thus grown cattle fatten rapidly upon it and cows 

 yield milk abundantly. Corn is so easily grown and pro- 

 duces so largely that dairymen make it the principal green 

 food to sustain their herds upon short pasture. Judicious 

 feeders, when they have no other green food but fodder corn, 

 are in the habit of feeding wheat bran and middlings with 

 the corn-fodder, so as to make it a well-balanced food." 



Early cutting objectionable.— If cut at a 



very early stage green corn is too watery, and 

 unsatisfactory results may ensue unless grain 

 or hay is fed in connection with it. Corn es- 

 pecially lacks in protein, but this may be sup- 

 plied in bran or other grain which contains a 

 fairly large per cent of this substance. Says 

 the late Prof. L. B. Arnold, than whom there 

 was no better authority on dairying fifteen 

 years ago:* 



"Those who have condemned it have fed it too young, or 

 have sown it so thick that its aliment (nutriment) was not 



* American Dairying, 1879, p. 72, 



