Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-03-30

pregnant animals have been fed vel vet beans or velvet bean meal. Thou sands and thousands of other preg-
 nant animals have been given these feeds for months with great benefits and no losses. A number of mares fed velvet bean products lost their colts prematurely. Every eve in a large flock aborted and some of the ewes died. More than dozen sows 1 the sows died.
 in one herd aborted and several of It has not been positively deter mined the cause of these losses but they are probably due to the pregnant animals eating velvet beans or velvet bean meal that was moldy or had started to decay. These condi- tions in any feed are likely to pro- duce abortion. Velvet bean meal is particularly likely to mold if the pods and beans are not well matured and 1 thoroughly kiln dried before grind l ing unless the meal is fed soon after being made.
 From all the information now ob- tainable, velvet beans are as valu- able for all kinds of pregnant farm animals as they are for growing nd fattening animals and can be fed to the feed must not be musty or decay ed to even the least extent.
 As an example of the value of vel vet beans may be mentioned the feeding of them to- brood sows and pigs at the Knapp School of Coun- try Life. Prof. K. c. Davis, the head of the Agricultural Department of that school, fed several carloads of velvet beans to hogs without a single case of trouble. He had unusual suc- cess with his brood sows and their large filters and thought that this was due to the great quantities of velvet bean meal that he sows ate. In cold weather the velvet bean meal was all the feed the swine had, except what they secured from the manure from a dairy herd and the cows were fed velvet bean meal. Prof. Davis found that sucking sows fed all the velvet bean meal they would eat, produced more than the usual quantity of milk as shown by the ra pid growth of their pigs.
 The One Fault of the Velvet Bean. The velvet bean grows slowly at the start so that it does not inter- fere with the growth or the cultiva- tion of the corn planted at the same time with it. When hot weather comes, about the usual time that the corn is laid by, the vines begin to grow rapidly, and when the weather gets exceedingly hot, the growth is so rapid that it astonishes one who has not seen it before
 On fertile soil the vines run up the top of the stalks and on to and over the stalks in adjoining rows and fin ally tie the whole field of corn into one tangled mass. If variety of corn with weak roots is planted, mary of the stalks will be crushed to the ground, late in the season, by the weight of the vines and pods. When the corn that lies on the ground is not gathered before wet weather sets
 in, some of it rots. There is practic- 1 ally no loss when the corn is gathered
 as soon as it gets ripe. Ai>t t | It is hard to gather the corn and the first time farmers raise velvet beans in the corn, they decide at corn gathering time that never again will
 they plant velvet beans in the corn.
 It costs about five cents a bushel l more to hire corn picked where vel
 vet beans are growing than it does
 where are no velvet beans in the field. .,.
 After the corn is gathered and the
 stock is turned into the field to har-
 vest the velvet beans, the horses and
 mules keep fat all winter, the dairy
 cows increase in their flow of milk,
 the beef cattle gain in weight every month and the pigs get fat eating the
 beans that the other aninsals shatter