SOME FEEDING TESTS

The Kansas station in a careful feeding test of 153 days produced 100 pounds of gain with 718 pounds of grain by using alfalfa hay for roughness. This test also gave the following table of gain in values, from the use of different feeds in the same given time:

Corn and alfalfa hay	$109.74
Corn and prairie hay	56.96
Corn and sorghum hay	27.09
Corn and oat straw	43.28
Barley and alfalfa hay	57.16

The Utah station after a feeding test published the statement that to produce 705.61 pounds of beef it required:

Of alfalfa hay	7,182	pounds
Of timothy hay	9,575	„
Of red clover hay	11,967	„
Of shredded corn fodder	10,083	„

Kansas Farmer Viewing One of His Alfalfa Fields

Showing ten days’ growth after first cutting in 1907

Harvesting Alfalfa in Ohio

At this station steers made a most rapid gain when fed upon early cut alfalfa hay, either with or without an accompanying ration of grain. “By early cut hay was meant hay cut just before bloom. The gain upon this early cut alfalfa hay was one-third more than that upon hay cut when in full bloom or later.”

The Utah station also reports a cattle feeding test (Bul. No. 61) in which 100 pounds of gain from feeding alfalfa hay cost $3.76; from timothy, $4.71, and from corn fodder, $6.21.

At the Nebraska station Prof. Howard R. Smith (Buls. 85 and 90) fed 50 yearling and 50 two-year-old grade steers in lots of ten for six months, each lot of each fifty having rations different from the others, and the table herewith shows the average cost per pound of gain made by each steer of each lot of yearlings:

Lot	fed	corn and prairie hay	8.27	cents
„	„	corn 90 per cent, oil meal 10 per cent, and prairie hay	6.82	„
„	„	corn 90 per cent, oil meal 10 per cent, and corn stover	6.09	„
„	„	corn 90 per cent, oil meal 10 per cent, and sorghum hay	7.00	„
„	„	corn and alfalfa hay	6.04	„

Below is shown the cost under similar conditions with the two-year-olds, (the cost of the corn and oil meal fed them having been slightly greater than that fed the yearlings):

Lot	fed	corn and prairie hay	8.23	cents
„	„	corn 90 per cent, oil meal 10 per cent, and prairie hay	8.27	„
„	„	corn 90 per cent, oil meal 10 per cent, and corn stover	6.49	„
„	„	corn 90 per cent, oil meal 10 per cent, and sorghum hay	7.87	„
„	„	corn and alfalfa hay	6.89	„

Among the deductions from these experiments, Professor Smith records the following, bearing upon the use of alfalfa:

“Alfalfa is much superior to prairie hay when the grain consists of corn alone. It also proved to be a cheaper source of protein than oil meal. The returns on the cattle fed alfalfa hay, were the alfalfa figured at $11.14 per ton, would have been as great as the returns on prairie hay at $6 per ton, with corn as the grain ration at 39 cents per bushel. In comparison with prairie hay at $6 when oil meal worth $28 per ton was a part of the grain ration, the alfalfa returned a value of $8.28 per ton. (In these experiments the cost of all alfalfa hay and all prairie hay was figured at the one price of $6 per ton.—Author.)

“Bright, well-cured corn stover fed with an equal weight of alfalfa, the grain consisting of corn alone, gave slightly larger gains than corn and alfalfa, and proved the most economical ration in the experiment. The addition of corn stover may have improved, to some extent, the corn and alfalfa ration by furnishing greater variety, and by its tendency to check scours sometimes caused by alfalfa. The stover fed with alfalfa returned a value of $4.57 per ton in comparison with alfalfa at $6 per ton as the sole roughness.

“By feeding alfalfa hay, which is a protein-rich roughness, extremely palatable and readily masticated, in place of prairie hay with corn alone, 14 per cent less grain was required for each pound of gain on two-year-olds and 27 per cent less on yearlings.

“Alfalfa hay, fed once per day in connection with corn and well-cured cornstalks, furnished sufficient protein for two-year-olds to make the three foods a combination producing heavy and very economical gains—more economical than any other ration in the experiment.

“Alfalfa is pronouncedly superior to prairie hay for beef production, and the more rapid the extension of the area of land devoted to the production of alfalfa, supplanting the less valuable and lower yielding native hay, the more rapid will be the production of wealth from our soil.”

One authority who has made a study of such problems says, “steers can be fattened on one-third less corn with alfalfa for roughness than without.”

W. H. Jordan, director of the New York (Geneva) experiment station says: “Probably no species of forage are known that are more economical sources of high-class cattle food than alfalfa and corn, and if in the realms of stock raising corn is king, alfalfa is queen.”