A Second Cutting of Alfalfa (July 28) in Shawnee County, Eastern Kansas

This was sown on the last half of the preceding September. Four cuttings probable with an aggregate yield of four tons per acre

CHAPTER X.
Alfalfa as a Feed Stuff

AS AN APPETIZER

The feeding value of alfalfa is largely in its chemical compound known as protein; its extreme digestibility is another desirable quality to be considered, and not least is its appetizing character. Not only do all animals like it, but when given in moderate quantities it seems to increase the general appetite for more fat-making feeds. Steers beginning to “fall off” on a heavy diet of corn will come to their appetites after being fed only a few pounds of alfalfa daily, and will eat and assimilate more corn than before.

Alfalfa alone is not a fat-making feed. Animals fed upon it grow in weight, but the weight is principally of bone, blood and muscle. It is without a sufficiency of fat and carbohydrates, and these should be added in such foods as corn, corn meal, Kafir corn, or Kafir corn meal; or to a limited degree even in corn stover, sorghum or millet. When alfalfa is fed alone all the protein cannot be digested, and, therefore, it is always economical to add some carbonaceous foods, if animals are fattening for market.

For several years feeders have been deploring the fact that fattening mainly with corn was becoming less and less profitable. When they began to figure the exact cost of each pound of gain on a steer or hog, they saw clearly that corn alone made the pound of gain cost too much; sometimes as much as it was worth in the market, leaving neither profit nor interest on the investment. The problem then became how to produce the pound of meat more economically.

Such a condition has prompted the state stations to make tests to determine the feeding value of various articles, and especially the value of alfalfa as a balance to the more carbonaceous foods. The tables here appended are worth studying:

FOOD VALUE OF SEVERAL FODDER CROPS

(From New York experiment station Bul. No. 118.)