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Farm Field And Garden

Farm Field And Garden image
Parent Issue
Day
2
Month
December
Year
1892
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

There is necessarily mach difficulty in saving coarse stalks of corn full of sap so as to make good feed in winter by ordinary methods. It is this fact which has had inuch to do with makin? ensilage popular. For the benefit of those who have no rüos, but are in the habit of leaving the cornstalks in the field until dried out by freezing weather. The American Cultivator gives this advice: The common objection to drawing atalks in early in that they will heat in mqw or stack. If piled in large heaps eoon after being out the mass will rot down and be good for nothing except ïnanure. Bnt some fermentation is not Dbjectionable if not carried too far. I", tn a way cooks the stalks, and evei' whep it resnlts in some loss of nutritioj! it ruakes what remains more palatable, and probably also more easy to be digested. We have often seen cattle ík winter greedily picking out the stalkn that had become overheated in the mow. and when fed were still moist from the heating. Sotne of these stalks were mildewed, and we feared that they might. if fed to cows bearing yonng, cause abortion, but we later abandoned that theory as a mistake. There is, we believe, less danger froni escessive and injurions heating of fresh stalks, dried as tnnch as they can be without exposure to rain and freezing, than there is from wet stalks that have been erposed to atmospherio changes several months. The green stalks will heat if piled up, and in hot weather will soon rot clown. But we believe it possible to get them in barns or stacks dried as much as they can be without exposure to rain, and by mixing dry straw with them keep the whole in better condition than is possible any other way. If the bundies of stalks are made small a layer of straw between each layer of bundies will absorb all the tBoisttu'e that the stalks give off in fennenting. The straw itself ttaus subjected to heating will become more palatable, and will be eaten by stock which will refuse dry straw trom the stack. Straw is plentif ui at tilla season on most large farms. There can be no better way to use it than in helping to sawa the corn fodder in good condition. In the heatiiig of cornstalks that have not been exposed to raius or freezing there is much less likelihood of the more injurious fungous growths that come trom fermentation of cornstalks whose nutrition has largely been washed out of them. The ricta juices of the ripened cornstalks act partially as a preeervative. and at any rate the richer feed that stock gets froni these sweeter stalks maintains vigorous health and enables the animal to resist the fungous poisons that depend on physical exhaustiou to make them effective.

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Argus
Old News