316 MANUAL OF CATTLE-FEEBIKa. 



Tliat wliicli is cut later, and especially that wliicli is 

 commonly cnred for winter fodder, is usually rich in carb- 

 lijdrates but poor in albuminoids, having a nutritive ratio 

 of 1:9 to 12, or even wider. On this account it cannot 

 be used exclusively, but must be supplemented by more 

 nitrogenous feeding-stuffs ; but when its proper function 

 is recognized, viz,, to furnish chiefly non-nitrogenous nutri- 

 ents, and its deficiency of protein is made up by other in- 

 gredients of the ration, it forms a valuable feeding-btuff, 

 which experience has shown to be well adapted to cattle. 

 The necessity for the use of nitrogenous bye-fodders is, of 

 course, still greater in the case of stover, which is esti- 

 mated by Wolff to have about the same nutritive value as 

 ^•ye straw. 



Digestibility. — On the digestibility of maize fodder we 

 have but a single experiment, by Moser,'^' on a very good 

 quality of maize fodder, which showed a high digestibility 

 of all the nutrients, particularly crude iibre and fat. 



From the results of one such experiment, however, no 

 general conclusions regarding the digestibility of a fodder 

 can be drawn. 



Ensilage.— Within a short time the process of " ensi- 

 lage" has been recommended to our farmers as a most 

 advantageous method of preserving maize fodder in par- 

 ticular, and a few practical trials of it have given favorable 

 results. While some extravagant claims have been made 

 for it, it doubtless possesses certain advantages over field 

 curing as well as certain disadvantages peculiar to itself. 



The process consists essentially in storing the finely cut 

 green fodder in suitable receptacles, in which it is closely 

 packed, and which are so arranged as to exclude the air as 



* Landw Versuchs Stationen, VIII , 93. 



