1909 . 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
45 
SOY BEANS TO THE RESCUE. 
How They Lessen the Feed Bill. 
The article entiled “That Awful Feed 
Bill,” on page 945 by J. Grant Morse, 
has in truth brought to issue the vital 
question of the hour among feeders of 
live stock—especially those who have 
heretofore largely purchased concen¬ 
trates. The growing of those highly 
nitrogenous farm crops, legumes, is in 
a broad way the solution. That legume 
forage (green), hay and silage lessens 
the necessary quantity of grain has 
been long recognized by the theorist and 
practical farmer. We must have also 
a cheap and balanced grain ration. The 
corn plant gives the cheapest food, both 
as roughage and grain, but is too high¬ 
ly carbonaceous. The cheapest com¬ 
mercial proteid feed seems to be oil 
meal which costs (New Y ork prices), 
somewhat over 5^ cents per protein unit. 
To those who can successfully grow 
them, Mr. Morse's suggestion of oats 
and Canada peas is directly in point. A 
reader of your paper will many times 
save his subscription if he can learn 
to grow and feed Soy beans. The Soy 
bean is best grown on land and in cli¬ 
mates suitable for corn; I believe it 
will grow wherever corn grows. Pre¬ 
pare the land as for corn. With me 
this means plowing, rolling, disking 
twice, spring-tooth harrowing once, 
spike-tooth harrowing twice. Plant' in 
36-inch drills two inches deep with 5 to 
obtained 28 to 30 bushels of thrashed 
and cleaned beans per acre. 
The forage I place at the top of the 
list for milch cows, especially when 
fed with fodder corn. For three Sum¬ 
mers my cows have been fed this for 
periods of about six weeks. The cows 
were in different stages of lactation. In 
no case did a cow’s production of milk 
decrease on this ration, yet in one or 
two instances it has increased. I feed 
approximately one part beans and two 
parts corn fodder. I always notice that 
when the season for this ration is over 
I am unable, try as I may with corn 
fodder, roots and grain, to maintain the 
former milk flow. Cows are always in 
perfect health on this ration and eat it 
greedily. I should very much like to 
try a silage mixture of one part Soy 
beans and two parts corn, but do not 
keep enough cows to use a silo. Soy 
beans make an excellent hay when cut 
when the pods are fully formed. Care 
must be employed not to shake off the 
leaves, as they contain the most nutri¬ 
ment. If the medium early green vari¬ 
ety is planted at the same time as Long¬ 
fellow flint corn, they mature together. 
As a grain feed I wish to call partic¬ 
ular attention to Soy beans. They 
analyze about the same as old process 
oil meal in digestible nutrients, but 
contain nearly twice as much fat. 
Therefore they are more valuable than 
oil meal if the same care is employed 
in feeding. The cost of growing an 
acre should be somewhat less than 
an acre of corn. When feeding to 
hogs do so in the sheaf, for they will 
do the thrashing and fanning. They 
are wonders at it and seem to relish 
them more this way. They also chew 
up the more tender parts of the stems. 
CROP OF SOY BEANS IN TENNESSEE. Fig. 23 . 
10 beans to the lineal foot. This crop de¬ 
pends upon and responds to superior 
cultivation more than any other I know. 
After planting, roll and spike-tooth 
twice before the plants come up. This 
should be within 5 to 12 days. The 
first spike-toothing should immediately 
follow rolling. A weeder can be sub¬ 
stituted for the spike-tooth harrow. As 
soon as the seedling plants clearly de¬ 
fine the rows, cultivate twice at a week’s 
interval as deeply as possible. I use a 
two-horse, spring-tooth cultivator with 
five teeth per row. After this I 
use a one-horse cultivator set shal¬ 
low, running on each side of every row 
as close to the row as is safe without 
injury to plants. The two-horse ma¬ 
chine cannot be worked as closely lo 
the plants. This is repeated five or 
six times throughout the growing sea¬ 
son. I always employ the level culture 
method and never use shovels on the 
cultivator unless it is the last time 
through. I have tried the yellow vari¬ 
ety but much prefer the medium early 
green. In the latitude of New York 
city the latter yields much more green 
forage per acre, whereas the yellow will 
produce no grain at all. This variety 
will produce 15 tons of green forage 
per acre, the experiment stations tell 
us, and, though I have never measured 
it, I believe the statement, as my 
stands average 48 inches high and 
the demarcation of the rows is com¬ 
pletely obliterated at maturity. I have 
I feed equal weights of sheaf beans 
and corn on cob. Next year I shall not 
husk the corn. I am sure the hired 
man, Mr. Poland-China, is a worker 
always on his job. The experiment sta¬ 
tions give excellent statistics regarding 
the. value of this Soy bean-corn combi¬ 
nation. For dairy cows I feed four 
parts corn and cob meal, two parts bean 
meal, one part bran by weight and also 
use a little oil meal for conditioning. I 
feed six pounds grain mixture per day. 
My cows are Jerseys. Soy beans on 
my farm cost 1.16^5 cents per pound, 
or 4023 cents per protein unit. I 
have never tried feeding horses upon 
Soy beans, but chickens eat the beans 
eagerly and also the chopped and 
steamed hay. I believe my yield of Soy 
beans can be materially increased, as 
the same land only produced last year 
105 bushels of ear corn per acre. 
H. W. HEALY. 
R. N.-Y.—The picture, Fig. 23, is 
taken from Bulletin 80 of the Tennes¬ 
see Experiment Station. It shows a 
field of Soy beans which were planted 
after Winter barley. We have seen the 
crop growing in Delaware even more 
vigorously than this one. The object 
of the Tennessee experiment was to 
show that the beans and straw of the 
Soy beans will take the place of wheat 
bran and other high-priced grain. It 
was found that a ton of Soy bean hay 
that will yield 560 pounds of beans and 
1,440 pounds of straw had a higher 
feeding value than a ton of Alfalfa 
hay. The Soy bean cost $7 a ton 
against $20 for the Alfalfa hay in Ten¬ 
nessee. As the director says, there is no 
use paying $25 to $30 for wheat bran 
when you can raise Soy beans for $7 
to $10. That is good sense for Tennes¬ 
see—or anywhere else. 
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