CONCENTRATED FEEDS 117 



animals, and may be fed on the ear, shelled, or milled into 

 pure meal, or the entire ear may be ground into what we call 

 eorn-and-cob-meal. While corn is rich in fattening material, 

 it lacks in ash, or mineral matter, so that, when fed alone, 

 it furnishes a rather one-sided ration. Except during the last 

 part of the fattening period, it should be fed along with some 

 feed rich in protein and ash, such as bran, middlings, etc. 



There are different races of corn. In the more northern 

 parts of the country, as in New England, a small to medium- 

 sized plant, with a somewhat slender ear, covered with hard, 

 flinty kernels, is grown. This is called fl.int corn. Over 

 most of the country a larger plant, with thicker ears, covered 

 with longer kernels, dented at the outer end, is grown. This 

 is known as dent corn, and makes up most of the corn crop 

 of the United States. Besides these two, we have sugar, or 

 sweet corn, which has a rough-surfaced ear that may be very 

 small or of medium size, covered with kernels that when dry 

 are somewhat shriveled and tough. This sweet corn con- 

 tains some glucose sugar, which accounts for the pleasant 

 taste of the grain. 



Com meal is the ground grain without the cob. The 

 usual run of such meal on the farm is rather coarse and is 

 often cracked or crushed rather than finely ground. In 

 some sections, the farmer calls it "corn chop." At the Wis- 

 consin Experiment Station Professor Henry for ten consecu- 

 tive winters fed two groups of pigs, one with corn meal and 

 the other with shelled corn. On the average it required 501 

 pounds of whole corn and wheat middlings for 100 pounds 

 of gain, and but 471 pounds of corn meal and middlings, a 

 saving of 6 per cent. In feeding a bushel of 50-cent corn 

 there would be a saving of three cents on a bushel, allowing 

 nothing for labor or expense. Thus we can see that it usually 

 does not pay to grind the grain, even though it is more com- 

 pletely digested than the whole kernel. Some special pur- 

 pose grinding may be quite desirable. 



