The Kennewick courier. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1905-1914, 1913-04-04
men OF intellectual vigor and nor
NAL stamina are country bred.
THE BILLION DOLLAR WASTE

the annual corn crop on the United
States is worth on the farms one
and a half billion dollars. In a
ripe corn plant 60 percent of the
! feed value is contained in the kerr
nels and 40 percent in stalk and
leaves. With the grain worth one
and half billion dollars, the feed
value OF the rest of the crop is a
billion dollars. At least 80 percent
OF the feed value of the stalk is lost
under the present system of farm
m a ma g e m n ia waste with this
crop alone of almost billion dollars
yearly. No other business but
farming could such an enormous
loss.
In the New England and Middle
States most of the stalks are saved
as fodder, and there are many silos,
but with the damage from weather
ing, the waste in handling and the
loss in digestibility from drying,
the farmers are very far from
utilizing the full feed value of the
corn stock. In the corn belt,
where the bulk of the crop is raised
comparatively few corn growers
harvest the stalks, and the only re-
turns most of them secure from the
forage is by pasturing the dead
stalks in the cold and storms of
winter. Frequently the death of
stock pastured in the stalk fields
makes loss that far exceeds the
returns from the feed.
Contrast this waste by the corn
grower with the practices of large
business organizations. For years
the great packing houses have sold
dressed meat for less than they
have paid for the live weight of the
animals.
Yet every year these packing
houses return millions of dollars
profit because they utilize to the
fullest extent the value of their by
products. The Standard Oil Co.
takes crude oil into its refining
plants, puts it through costly pro-
cesses, using apparatus that requires
an outlay of millions, pays the
freight and delivers the kerosene
and gasolene direct to the con-
sumers at lower rate than is asked
for mineral water, where the only
expense is to run the. water through
a pipe from spring into a bottle.
At the same time the corn growers
are wasting most of forty percent of
the feed value of over one hundred
million acres of corn.
The silo provides the corn
grower with the means for utilizing
the largest proportion of the feed
value of his entire crop, grain and
forage. The silage can be kept for
days. months or years, or feeding
may begin as soon as filling the silo
is completed. The silo can be
filled in good weather, when it is
raining, or in times of extreme
drouth. and hot winds. Silage is
good, fed daily, both in winter and
summer. When grass is ready in
the spring, the feed that remains in
the silo can be covered and will
keep well until needed when the
summer drouth comes. Silage
furnishes a green, succulent, appe-
tizing feed through the winter, the
same as grass through the summer.
1t keeps the animals system in as
good condition as when the stock is
on good pasture, and feeds given
with it are better digested.
Corn makes the best silage, Kafir
corn, milo and sorghum follow,
their value being in the order men
toned. Green pea-vines, husks
and cobs from the canning factories
make good material to put in the
silo.
The vast dry farming sections of
the Southwest will be as thickly
settled with comfortable farm homes
as is the northern corn belt when
ever stock raising, drouth resistant
forage crops and the silo are adopted,
instead of exclusive grain farming.