The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1900-06-12
SHEDDING CORN.

from the Southern CultiVatOr and
Dixie Farmer of May Is, 1900, is full
of good sound common sense and is
well worth a second reading by those
Progressive Farmer readers who
have both papers.
Maj Alvord in careful address
at Raleigh before the North Carolina
State Dairymen's Association, as
sured his hearers that Southern
farmers are wasting half the corn
crop. He based his statements on
careful experiments where weights
and digestions were used to make the
determinations. It is hard to take
this home and acknowledge what
has been shown, that the method of
pulling fodder, and plucking ears
wastes half the food that is grown,
but if we study the accumulated
data it will be found too near liter
ally true for continuatioa in the old
practice with clear conscience.
But the Major data was gathered
from corn from which the leaves
were stripped with good Judgment
when the ears were filled and at
about the time when the stalks should
he cut for best interest of the crop.
After that the changes which take
place are translocation from stalk
and shucks to kernels.l This does
not cease Immediately on cutting up
corn. In the cut corn if properly
timed there is less danger of rob-
bing the ears by too early work than
from stripping the leaves as in fod-
der pulling.
This is subject chat it is we'll to
begin studying now. Decide what
course you will pursue in the corn
harvesting season next fall. The
Progressive Farmer will have other
articles on the subject during the
summer The Southern Cultivator
article is as follows:
Farmers have been so long accus-
toned to pulling fodder that it is
difficult to stop doing so. Hence we
begin in time this year to call atten-
tion to this subject. Fodder has
been pulled to save for dry food for
horses. Many think they must CON
tinue to pull for this purpose. They
think that without fodder they
would not know how to feed. They
do not know or remember that a
vast majority of horses and mules
never saw fodder. That none ever
saw it until few years ago COM
paratiyely. The corn from which
we pull fodder was not known to the
farming world until recent period.
Even now it's cultivation is con-
fined to small area. And very small
part of those who grow corn ever
pull fodder. This practice is con-
fined almost entirely to a few South
ern States.
Horses do as we'll with hay for
roughage as with fodder.
There is no use pulling fodder
simply to get roughage for horses
and mules. There are so many hay
grasses that make this kind of food
cheaper.
A LOSING BUSINESS.
THERE'S no necessity to pull fodder,
neither is it a ~ ing business. Habit
has taught us TO believe that we
must pull the fodder to save it. That
we would lose something if we did
not pull the fodder. This is mis-
take for several reasons. In fact it
is loss to pull fodder.
The blades are so necessary to the
life of the corn that it makes the
ears lighter to pull them off for fod-
der. All growing processes stop at
once when the leaves are stripped
from the stalks. The grains are
never full while the blades are green.
Fodder is always pulled before the
blades are all dead. The loss of
weight is always about equal to the
weight of the fodder. 1t is much
greater when the fodder is pulled a
little green as is very often done.
Here there is positive loss in value.
The cost of pulling and saving the
fodder must be added to this loss.
Fodder costs more than it is worth.
First it costs about rs cents to save
a hundred pounds of fodder and the
damage to the corn is about the same,
often fully 81.
So we see each hundred pounds of
fodder costs about one dollar and