is the only safe position to take towards whole screenings. Finelyground screenings often make satisfactory and cheap feeds, and, if carefully ground, are not, as a rule, objectionable. Poisonous weed seeds, like corn cockle, are found in most screenings, but they are ordinarily not present in sufficient quantities to give rise to any trouble in stock feeding. Sheep and poultry appear to be able to

FIG. 33.-Weeds growing from seed found in a mixed "dairy feed." This contained 100,000,000 weed seeds to the ton. The soil was sterilized, so that it is certain that every plant grew from a weed seed in the feed. Most samples of whole screenings contain still larger numbers of weed seeds. (Vermont Station.)

destroy weed seeds of screenings more thoroughly than other farm animals, and do well on them.

The accompanying illustration (Fig. 33) shows a luxurious growth of different weeds from seeds found in a mixed dairy feed. This feed was made up largely of whole grain screenings and contained about 100 million weed seeds to the ton. Most samples of grain screenings contain still larger numbers of weed seeds.

Screenings are often used in the manufacture of mixed feeds and molasses feeds, in the latter case serving as absorbent for the

molasses. Both screenings and molasses feeds manufactured from them may be considered worth somewhat less than wheat bran, ton for ton.

Emmer (often incorrectly called speltz) is a drought-resistant cereal crop, especially valuable in the semi-arid western United States, where it is extensively grown and fed to stock. Experiment stations in that region have experimented extensively with emmer for a number of years, and have shown that it is well worthy of a trial by farmers in those States, along with oats or where oats cannot be grown. Emmer yields good crops of grain (20 to 40 bushels per acre), and compares favorably in feeding value with oats and barley. For best results, mixtures of oats or other grains and emmer are ground and fed, instead of clear emmer, which is rather fibrous and bulky. The hulls of emmer make up about 20 per cent of the grain. It resembles oats more than any other grain crop, and is largely used for feeding farm animals as a substitute for oats. The following compilation of digestion coefficients of these two grain crops and of barley shows that emmer stands between these in digestible components, and that it stands nearer oats than barley :8

Digestible Components in Oats, Emmer, and Barley, in Per Cent

Buckwheat is rarely used for feeding farm animals, either whole or ground, since it is too valuable as a raw material for the manufacture of buckwheat flour. The by-products obtained in the manufacture of this flour will be considered under “ Flour and Cereal Mill Feeds” (p. 183).

Sweet and non-saccharine sorghums are important bread crops for the peoples of Asia and Africa. “In India alone over 33,000,000 acres of land are annually devoted to growing the millets, including the sorghums, kafir, milos, etc., a greater area than is devoted to wheat raising, rice, and Indian corn combined.”9

* Dept. Agr. Dom. Canada, June, 1915; Inl. Rev. Dept. Bul. 254; Minn. Report 1893; Farmers' Bul. 704; U. S. Dept. Agr. Bul. 328.

sa Bureau of Chemistry, U. S. Department of Agriculture, Bulletin 120; Farmers' Bulletin 466; S. D. Bul. 179.

"Church, “ Food Grains in India,” 1901; cited in Henry, “ Feeds and Feeding,” p. 147; Farmers' Bul, 37, 557; Kansas Bul. 198; U. S. Dept. Agr. Bul. 188.

8

The sorghums may be divided into two classes: (1) The sweet or saccharine varieties, of which amber or orange cane is mostly grown, and (2) the non-saccharine or grain sorghums, which are smaller and have pithy stems, with but little sweet juice (Fig. 3). Sweet sorghum is grown primarily for forage and, to a limited extent at the present day, for the production of syrup. The non-saccharine sorghums are grown both for grain and for forage. The grain sorghums are represented in this country by kafir corn, durra, and milo maize, and a few other varieties of minor importance. Different strains of each of these are grown and possess different characteris

FIG. 34.-Types of grain sorghums; these crops are of increasing importance for grain and forage to farmers in the western United States. From left to right: 1 and 2, yellow Milo; 3 and 4, white and brown Kaoliang; 5, Feterita (Sudan Durra); 6 to 8, red, pink, and black-bulled Kafir corn. (Breeders' Gazette.)

tics that make them of special value under varying conditions. The main cultivated strains are: White and black kafir, white, brown, and Sudan durra, and yellow milo. The kafirs and milo occur in standard and dwarf varieties. White durra is also called Jerusalem corn; brown durra, Egyptian corn,' and Sudan durra, feterita. The grain sorghums are valuable forage and grain plants, especially suited to a dry and hot climate. The most striking characteristic of the grain sorghums is their ability to withstand drought, and to make a good growth with but little or no rainfall. After periods of protracted drought, they will resume growth as soon as water becomes available. In this respect they differ greatly from Indian corn, which will not yield satisfactorily when once checked in its growth. This quality makes the grain sorghums especially valuable under the conditions in the semi-arid western and southwestern States. They bid fair to become of great agricultural importance in these sections of the country. The areas sown to grain sorghums in Kansas (Fig. 35), Oklahoma, and Texas have increased in a marked manner during the last ten years, and they are apparently replacing Indian corn to some extent in these States.11

The grain of the non-saccharine sorghums resembles Indian corn in chemical composition; it contains a higher percentage of starch than corn, but less protein and fat, and may be considered not quite equal to corn in feeding value or palatability. The grain should be

AREA OF GRAIN-SORGHUM ANO CORN IN KANSAS

F1o. 35.-Diagram showing increase in area sown to grain sorghums in Kansas during the

decade 1904-13. (Ball.)

threshed and ground for feeding to fattening cattle, while it may be fed threshed or in the head to working horses and sheep, and preferably “heads and all” to idle horses, colts, dairy cattle, and young stock; a head of Kafir corn is considered of similar feeding value as an ear of Indian corn. Ground grain is fed with skim milk to calves, and moistened with water or skim milk to hogs. As it is quite carbonaceous (N. R., milo 1: 9.7, Egyptian corn 1:8.9), it makes a good supplemental feed for hogs fed skim milk or alfalfa, either hay or pasture.

Rice.-As in the case of many other seeds, rice is too valuable as a human food to allow of its general use for feeding farm stock; it is only used for this purpose to a limited extent in rice-growing sections in unhulled form, as rough rice (so-called paddy rice). The hull or husk of the rice kernel is rough and brittle, and is usually removed before the grain is sold. The hull is not, as we shall see, suited for feeding livestock, on account of its sharp barbs and high content of ash (silica, see p. 186), but it is sometimes ground with rice for feeding purposes. The hulled rice is a very valuable fattening feed. It contains considerably more nitrogenfree extract than any other available feeding stuff, viz., nearly 80 per cent, while its protein content is low (on the average, 7.4 per cent). Owing to the high starch content and the minute amount of fiber in the hulled rice, it has the highest percentage digestibility of any vegetable feed known, its digestion coefficients being as follows, according to the German digestion trials:

Dry matter, 98 per cent; protein, 86 per cent; nitrogen-free extract, 100 per cent, and fat, 90 per cent.

According to the Louisiana station, ground, rough rice is worth 7

per cent more than corn as a feed for farm stock, and hulled rice is worth 16 per cent more. Supplemented with cottonseed meal and other high-protein feeds, ground rice furnishes southern farmers a highly nutritious ration for cattle, sheep, or horses. The only thing that stands in the way of its general use for stock feeding is its cost.12

II. LEGUMINOUS AND OIL-BEARING SEEDS The leguminous seeds, like peas and beans, soybeans and cowpeas, are valuable concentrated feeds, and their use for feeding farm animals is increasing every year, as farmers come to realize their value and appreciate that they can greatly reduce their feed bills by growing high-protein forage and grain crops on their farms. At the same time the fertilizer bills may be reduced, since these crops render available for plant use the free nitrogen of the air through symbiosis with certain soil bacteria, and leave the soil richer in this expensive fertilizer element than it was before the crop was grown thereon (p. 113). These grains have a high digestibility and contain two or three times as much digestible protein as the cereal grains. With the exception of soybeans, which contain nearly 15 per cent digestible fat, the leguminous seeds are all very low in this component, containing only about 1 per cent thereof. Further information as to the character of the seeds given will be found under the discussion of the respective crops as forage plants. The chemical composition of these seeds will be seen from the following table: