Southern planter - The W&M Digital Archive

1908.] THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 11
I have never missed a catch on land so treated. We now
have crimson clover growing for a fourth successive season
on land which has produced corn every year. This is
pine stump land of naturally thin quality and quite acid.
The first season the corn was almost nothing and crimson
clover failed to stand. The next spring a liming as above
indicated was given, resulting in paying corn and good
clover, and as stated, the fourth clover crop is now on
the land with no further liming. Some floats, however,
was sown last spring.
In one or two cases I have followed the limed corn with
oats and red clover, and so far have not failed to secure a
stand. I was somewhat skeptical on the subject of liming
until I began trying it. Now I am enthusiastic in advo-
cating a small application. The one time I tried a half ton
or more I also tried about 600 pounds per acre of dissolved
rock on the same crop of corn, and could not have had a
worse failure if I had planted the corn alone. I will go
slowly hereafter in applying fertilizer with the lime.
I prefer to lime the corn crop in order that it mar be
thoroughly mixed with the soil, and the corn is almost
invariably benefitted, but the primary objeot of liming is
to insure grass, especially the clovers, and cow peas.
I would never lime anything but a swamp if I intended
to cultivate it continuously without any hay or cover
crops. W. A. SHERMAN.
Vienna, Fairfax Co., Va.
The statement made and to which exception is taken
that "nearly half the value is in the fodder" is substantially
correct. The exact distribution as determined
by many analyses is 60 per cent, in the ear and 40 per
cent, in the stover (digestible matter). Whether these
exact values can be realized in the feeding depends largely
on the way in which the products are handled. Major
Alvord, when Director of the Maryland Experiment Sta-
tion, made a practical test to demonstrate the truth of the
analysis of the different parts of the corn plant and
showed conclusively that the same was correct. He divided
the corn stalks into different sections. In one he
had the ear, in another the top above the ear, in another
'the shuck and a short section of the stalk to> which it
was attached and in another the stalk below the ear.
Each of these sections he fed to two steers in relatively
the same proportions as their digestible nutrients called
for and he got the same results from the feeding of the
different parts. To secure, however, these results he had
to grind the stalk and the hard parts to meal in order to
make them palatable.. This showed that the digestible
nutrients were there. The only question was how to se
cure their palatability in order to realize upon them.
Shredding finely will largely meet this difficulty, but even
this is not altogether sufficient. If when feeding shredded
stover farmers would prepare the ration twelve or twen-
ty-four hours beforehand and sprinkle the stover freely
with water with a little salt in it and then cover the mass
with old bags and let it heat and soften very little will
be wasted when fed. We always fed it in this way and
treated cut straw and hay in the same way. There is
great economy in so feeding coarse fodder. Practically
the stover so treated becomes a succulent feed like ensi-
lage and is eaten as freely as ensilage. As to the point
that stover is as valuable as or nearly so as timothy hay,
and which seems to be doubted, we based this also on
the average analysis of the products and on experiments
made at several stations in feeding both kinds of roughage.
The digestible nutrients in one ton of stover and one
ton of timothy hay are as follows:
Corn stover Timothy hay
lbs. lbs.
Fiber 353.7 296.1
Fat 13.5 33.1
Protein 53.1 55.4
Nitrogen free extract 544.6 553.6
964.6 938.2
This table we think fully justifies our statement. Timothy
hay is the most over-rated long feed of any produced
by American farmers. For our own feeding we would
rather have good, sweet oat straw cut before the grain
was over-ripe any day than the average timothy hay to
be found on the market. If we grew timothy hay it
would be solely for a sale crop. City horse keepers will
always give more for it than it is worth to feed on the
farm and we would let them have it and substitute corn
stover, straw and mixed hay for feeding at home.
As to the lime question. We know that we are regarded
as a sort of crank on this subject, but we are
quite willing to accept the position. In our practical ex-
perience on the farm we have applied hundreds of tons
of lime to our land and have done so at rates varying from
two to five tons to the acre. We never saw that we had
done any harm however heavy the application, but we
constantly saw and reaped material benefit from its use.
We are in the same position as a Pennsylvania farmer, a
subscriber of ours, who wrote us sometime ago on the sub-
ject. He sadd that he had seen ten tons of lime applied
per acre and that the land was in no way injured so far
as any one could see. We believe now that we applied
much more per acre when using two tons to the acre tham
gave profitable results. But at that time we only limed
once in a seven-years rotation and if we could have kept
the two tons in the upper strata of the soil through the
seven years we believe that it would have been profitably
used. Lime will, however, sink down quickly into the soil
and long before the seven years had passed it was beyond
the reach of most plants. If the same quantity had been
used in three applications in the seven years we believe it
would have been better. We think an application of one
ton to the acre is little enough to give good results phy-
sically, mechanically and chemically and lime acts bene-
ficially in all these three ways. If it does not cost the
farmer more than $4.50 per ton on the iarm it can be
used profitably. This is the opinion of farmers in Mary-
land and Pennsylvania who have written us on the subject
and they have had large experience in its use and
it is an opinion in which we concur from our own prac
tical experience. The handling and spreading of lime is
not pleasant work and one need not hanker after the
job but we have done it personally by a week at a time.
It requires the exercise of common sense in the way it ia
done and then one need not be seriously inconvenienced.
When we were using lime there was no machine made to