DAIRYING IN PORTO RICO. 11 
All of the sorghums make excellent growth in Porto Rico. Plant- 
ings of the leading varieties are being extended to all parts of the 
island. 
The forage sugar canes also merit consideration as feed for live 
stock. The Japanese canes make thrifty growth on very poor lands, 
and are not as susceptible to the mottling disease as are some of the 
better-yielding varieties. During the rainy season some of the 
Japanese canes tested at the station have yielded 33 tons of fodder 
cane within seven months after planting. Cane tops and molasses, 
by-products of the sugar industry, are largely entering into the 
feeding of cattle. 
Many of the leguminous plants furnish a large amount of feed 
for cattle. Of the varieties introduced for this purpose by the sta- 
tion, none has done so well as has the velvet bean. This crop can 
be planted when the last crop of cane has been harvested, and it will 
improve the soil for replanting to cane. It could also be planted in 
many waste places and along fence rows. CrotdLaria juncea, or 
sunn hemp, makes the greatest growth in the shortest time of any 
legume tried at the station. It is grazed to some extent by cattle 
and is also fed in the corral. Cowpeas, especially the running varie- 
ties, can be profitably grown for forage purposes. They make rapid 
growth and the crop when used as forage tends to decidedly improve 
the quality of the milk. The residue of some of the beans and 
pigeon peas, locally called " gandules," can also be utilized as cattle 
feed. Corn, the king of the grasses, grows successfully in all sec- 
tions of Porto Rico at some time of the year, and the by-products 
can be used to feed cattle. 
FEEDING. 
• 
Methods of feeding should be arranged so that a given acreage will 
carrv the maximum number of cattle. Feeding should be done as 
economically and conveniently as possible. Some farmers like to 
feed their cattle in the stall, and others prefer feeding from a rack. 
The latter is undoubtedly the more economical of the two methods 
because all grass that is pulled from the rack falls into the cement 
trough below and is picked up by the animals, and the residue, which 
collects around the base of the rack with the manure, can be readily 
gathered up and transported to the field. (PI. IV, Fig. 1.) Results 
obtained in a test conducted at the station to determine the more 
economical of the two methods, showed that the consumption of 
elephant grass was 92.5 per cent when it was chopped and fed in the 
stall, and 91.2 per cent when it was fed whole from the rack. The 
small gain in consumption when the grass was chopped and fed in 
the stall was not sufficient to pay for the extra labor involved. Tak- 
ing this into account, there was a slight but economically important 
difference in favor of the rack method. 
