CROPS SUITABLE FOR THE SILO. 325 



of food per acre that is so highly palatable and 

 nutritious and over so wide an area. Various other 

 crops, as clover, soy beans and cowpeas may be bet- 

 ter preserved along with corn, as for instance, in 

 alternate layers, than when put into the silo alone. 

 Since in some sections corn is not easily preserved 

 in the shock, the stack or the barn, the percentage of 

 loss in those areas is reduced when corn is cured in 

 the silo. 



So completely adapted is corn to the require- 

 ments of silage making that where it can be grown 

 successfully from year to year it is questionable as 

 to whether very much attention should be given to 

 the siloing of other crops. Were it not that it is 

 rather low in protein, the propriety of growing other 

 crops to blend with it or to feed along with the 

 silage made from it might well be questioned. Since 

 the protein required to balance the ration can usualh/ 

 be procured more easily in the cured form, it is com- 

 monly more advantageous thus to procure it. 

 Probably the soy bean, the cowpea and the sunflower, 

 plants that are rich in protein, furnish exceptions. 



Sorghum. — The suitability of sorghum for the 

 silo is, in some respects at least, not very far different 

 from that of corn, but since sorghum has not hereto- 

 fore been grown to anything like the same extent as 

 corn in those areas where the silo is most needed, its 

 merits as silage food are but little known, and since 

 its keeping qualities outside of the silo are in several 

 respects superior to those of corn, the same necessity 

 has not been felt for curing it in the form of silage. 

 And when thus cured, sorghum silage has usually 

 been found more acid than silage made from corn. 



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