Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1904-05-14
Feeding Value Of Soft Corn for Beef
Production.

tSSosu9 t6tue OF Sort Corn TOT Beer
Production.
The Feeding Value of Soft Corn for
Beef Production" is the title Of bull
letin No. rs, just issued by the Animal
Husbandry Section of the Iowa Elk
pertinent Station. The soft corn
problem has been q serious one, dur
ing the past two years. in many sec
tons OF the central west due to the
early fall frosts which affected the
crop before 1t was mature.
Much OF the corn from q marketable
standpoint was worthless. 1t must
either be fed to stock or allowed to rot
In the delds- To the man who grew q
fair acreage OF corn for his own feed
ing operations the matter was easily
solved. He could feed 1t to his ami
mails. With the grain farmer and the
stock feeder 1t was different One
had been accustomed to selling corn
and the other was a purchaser.
What was the value of soft corn?
This at once became a pertinent Ques-
ton. 1t could not be evaded. The
feeder had his feed lots full of high
priced cattle, the grain farmer had his
fields of unmarketable corn. Had it
any feeding value? Some men claimed
that the frost changed the compost
ton, making it practically worthless.
The chemist claimed that the only
difference between soft corn and ma
ture corn was the water content,
which was very mucn greater in the
former.
Requests from all over the state for
Information along this line caused the
animal Husbandry section to take up
this matter, make the practical feed
ing tests, supplemented by chemical
tests by the Station chemist, and to
gather much other information that
had direct bearing on this subject
as is reported in Bulletin No. 75
The following conclusions are de-
Quoted from the results obtained.
I. That soft corn grown on the col
lege farm in 1902 and containing 35
per cent of moisture at the beginning
of the test, pound for pound, on
water free, or dry matter basis, was
fully equal in feeding value to ma
ture corn grown in 1900 when used for
fattening cattle.
2. That cattle fed on such soft corn
made nearly as heavily gains and fin
ished equally as well as those fed on
mature corn grown in 1900.
8. That when soft corn similar to
that used in this test, could be pur-
chased for 80 cents per bushel, the
prevailing market price, gains on fat
tenfng cattle could be made at a cost
of 3.03 cents per pound less than when
mature corn, costing so cents per
bushel, the prevailing market price,
was fed under similar conditions.
That a study of the Chicago live
stock market conditions from January
1, 1903. to July 81, 1903, shows con-
clusively that the comparatively low
prices of beef cattle was not caused
by an oversupply of half finished cat
tie. On the contrary there was .
larger number of well finished cattle
marketed during that period for 1908
than for the corresponding period OF
any one of the past ten years.
5. That the chemical analyses would
indicate that the nutritive value OF
the corn grown in 1902 compares fav-
orably with mature corn grown in
other years when water free sub
stance or dry matter serves as basis
of comparison.
6. That the amount of moisture
present was the main differences so
far as composition is concerned. That
the amount of moisture depends main
ly on the maturity of the corn when
stricken by frost.