The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1896-01-30
Relative Value OF Hays.

lam packing in alternate layers in bales
of 40 pounds the following:
Peavine hay. ...................1 100 pounds
Corn shucis. ..................10 100 pounds.
Peanut vines. .........loo POUNDS.
Pea hullS.. ......... 0o pouuus.
Crab grass ay..............lO 100 pounds.
1t makes a capita! combination for my
horses and mich COWS. Please give me
the commercial value per hundred weight
of this combination with Timothy hay
the ingredients are in prime condition.
All were cut in season. air cured and re-
tain foliage Do you approve of this
mixture,
would be glad to be placed on your
mailing list. as value the bulletin very
highly from what get through the news
papers.
Discussing the relative merits of hay
with merchant. who is also a planter
and owner, he very much doubted my as
sertion that crab grass hay ranked higher
than Timothy in nutriment, and that
peavine hay, cut at the proper time and
cured properly, outranked either. VIII
you be SO kind as to publish or at least
give me the benefit of your information
on the relative merits of timothy, orch
ard grass Bermuda, crab grass, peavine
hay, peanut hay, oat straw, pea hulls,
red clover? Our farmers are just begin
ming to find out that 0at straw, shucks
and pea hulls are worth saTing. | have
been preaching such economy for 20 years
and have only succeeded in advancing the
wonderful utility of cowpeaS as a hay,
grain and renovating crop. l trust l am
not asking too much of you. The infor-
nation sought would be very valuable to
many of us.--A. J., Greenville, y. c.
ANSWERED by +. Z. Emery, Agricul-
turist, y. {. Experiment Statlon.J
jur queries are in the line where
g. ,,,f,
are men who haul wood to this city at
s. 90 to 81 80 per cord and buy timothy
hay at $50 per ton to feed their teams.
Corn stalks ere left to fall down i'll the
field by them and their neighbors. 1t is
fairly capable of demonstration that the
wasted stalks if fed with meal ration
can replace the hay at a lower cost for
the ration than hay, corn and oats as
fed You asked for commercial value
when it seems comparative feeding
value is what is desired. CONNER
cially, timothy hay outranks all others.
That is the kind to raise to sell, but to
feed at home would be different ques-
ton. When the climate would suit
earlier grasses would be used and some
others would be grown with timothy.
There is a tendency to calculate food
into heat equivalents. That is, food is
burned i'll the animal body and pro-
duces its effect i'll heat and nerve forces
which may or not, be a form of express
sion for heat The digestible portions
of foods are reduced to heat equivalents
by adding to the sum of digestible pro-
tein' and carbohydrate 2.27 times
the digestible fat.
This will give a fair comparison Of
timothy nay with the other articles
named above and included in the fol-
lowing table:
1t is perhaps the nearest comparative
of actual feeding value though it is
manifestly unfair commercially since it
makes no account of the greater cost Of
protein as compared with carbohydrates.
The heat values are considered equal
Considerable matter relating to the SUBJ
ject of the above queries will be found
i'll our digestion bulletins and some Of
the data contained i'll the table could
not be given but for those experiments.
AS it is, several foods are calculated on
an assumed digestibility. These are
Bermuda hay, taken from Bulletin 70
| Of this Station. Crab grass hay, the
composition Of which was determined
at tho Tennessee Experiment Station.
and the digestibility assumed as for hay
| of annual grasses in Bulletin 49, Pea
hulls are here assumed to be equal
| to rbean hulls' and Professor Stew
arts calculation of digestibility il
| All the other articles have been sub
| jected to digestion in American expert
nentS.