198 SOILS AND PLANT LIFE 



plant is at least from 25 to 35 per cent greater when the 

 ears are in the glaze than when the plant is mature. 



It is chiefly due to this fact that the practice of cutting 

 corn when the ears are in the glaze, chopping it into fine 

 pieces, and storing it in silos to be fed out later, has proved 

 profitable, though another important reason is found in 

 the fact that a store of palatable, succulent feed is thus 

 secured for winter use. This method of harvesting the 

 crop is undeniably gaining in popularity, and justly so. 



The practice of cutting the corn while in the glaze 

 and shocking it to be used as dry fodder later, also has the 

 advantage named above of yielding a greater amount of 

 digestible food material from a given area than will be 

 secured if the plants are allowed to mature and only the 

 ears are taken. However, this method is open to the 

 objection that a considerable amount of the food value is 

 ordinarily lost as the result of molds, weathering and 

 other causes. 



Notwithstanding the advantages of other methods, 

 however, it is still true that by far the greater part of the 

 corn crop grown in the central states is allowed to ripen 

 in the field, gathered in wagons and stored in cribs. 



136. Crops used as Substitutes for Corn. — In those 

 sections of the West where the rainfall is scant during the 

 hot summer months, corn can not be safely grown. To 

 take its place, other plants which are peculiarly adapted 

 to a semiarid climate have been introduced from foreign 

 lands, and are extensively grown for their grains which are 

 not greatly different from corn in composition. Among 

 these are Kafir corn, milo maize, dura, feterita and others. 



These plants are not to be regarded as varieties of corn 

 at all. In fact, they are only distantly related to it, 

 though they are true grasses. They came to us from 



