Milch Cows and Dairy Farming / Comprising the Breeds, Breeding, and Management, in Health and Disease, of Dairy and Other Stock, the Selection of Milch Cows, with a Full Explanation of Guenon's Method; The Culture of Forage Plants, and the Production of Milk, Butter, and Cheese: Embodying the Most Recent Improvements, and Adapted to Farming in the United States and British Provinces. With a Treatise upon the Dairy Husbandry of Holland; To Which Is Added Horsfall's System of Dairy Management

by Charles Louis Flint

Indian Corn

makes an exceedingly valuable fodder, both as a means of carrying a herd of milch cows through our severe droughts of summer, and as an article for soiling cows kept in the stall. No dairy farmer will neglect to sow an extent in proportion to the number of cows he keeps. The most common practice is to sow in drills from two and a half to three feet apart, on land well tilled and thoroughly manured, making the drills from six to ten inches wide with the plough, manuring in the furrow, dropping the corn about two inches apart, and covering with the hoe. In this mode of culture the cultivator may be used between the rows when the corn is from six to twelve inches high, and unless the ground is very weedy no other after culture is generally needed. The first sowing usually takes place about the 20th of May, and this is succeeded by other sowings at intervals of a week or ten days, till July, in order to have a succession of green fodder. But, if it is designed to cut it up to cure for winter use, an early sowing is generally preferred, in order to be able to cure it in warm weather, in August or early in September. Sown in this way, about three or four bushels of corn are required for an acre, since, if sown thickly, the fodder is better, the stalks smaller, and the waste less.

The chief difficulty in curing corn cultivated for this purpose, and after the methods spoken of, arises mainly from the fact that it comes at a season when the weather is often colder, the days shorter, and the dews heavier, than when the curing of hay takes place. Nor is the curing of corn cut up green so easy and simple as that of drying the stalks of Indian corn cut above the ear, as in our common practice of topping. The plant is then riper, less juicy, and cures more readily.

The method sometimes adopted is to cut and tie into small bundles, after it is somewhat wilted, and stook upon the ground, where it is allowed to stand, subject to all the changes of the weather, with only the protection of the stook itself. The stooks consist of bunches of stalks first bound in small bundles, and are made sufficiently large to prevent the wind from blowing them over. The arms are thrown around the tops to bring them together as closely as possible, when the tops are broken over or twisted together, or otherwise fastened, in order to make the stook “shed the rain” as well as possible. In this condition they stand out till sufficiently dried to put into the barn. Corn fodder is very excellent for young dairy stock.

Common Millet (Panicum miliaceum)

is another very valuable crop for fodder in soiling, or to cure for winter use, but especially to feed out during our usual periods of drought. Many varieties of millet are cultivated in this country, the ground being prepared and treated as for oats. If designed to cut for green fodder, half a bushel of seed to the acre should be used; if to ripen seed, twelve quarts, sown broad-cast, about the last of May or early in June. A moist loam or muck is the best adapted to millet; but I have seen very great crops grown on dry upland. It is very palatable and nutritious for milch cows, both green and when properly cured. The curing should be very much like clover, care being taken not to over-dry it. For fodder, either green or cured, it is cut before ripening. In this state all cattle eat it as readily as green corn, and a less extent will feed them. Millet is worthy of a widely-extended cultivation, particularly on dairy farms. Indian millet (Sorghum vulgare) is another cultivated variety.