FARM AND STATION.

Otago Witness, Issue 2456, 17 April 1901, Page 4

FARM AND STATION.

UTILISATION OF PTRAW AS FOOD FOR STOCK. As those farmers who are able to sell straw at higher prices than it is worth to them for consumption at home are few in comparison with the many ■uho, farming at long distances from railway stations and populous localities, cannot sell their straw remuneratively, it becomes a question of general interest how (o utilise it in the most feasible and economical way, so as to increase the capabilities of farms to sustain larger stocks of cattle and sheep in winter. There can .be no doubt that from the earliest times straw has been employed to some extent as food for stack, but there have been bad as well as good ways of doing this, and the right methods have not always been chosen. Arthur Young condemned the practice in his day of dciiiry cows, when out of profit in winter, being fed on nothing else than straw fodder. He says in his Calendar : "The common cases are of cows, young cattle, or black cattle ju? brought in and not yet put to fatting. With regard to cows, the food is entirely insufficient, and lets them down so much in flesh that when thev 1 calve and are expected to yield productively they lose a considerable time, and that perhaps the most valuable, in getting again into flesh before they give their usual quantity of milk ; but if they have been well and sufficiently wintered they are half summered, and yield adequately. For young cattle it is still less management, for their growth is stunted and they never recover it." In the Home country throughout the last half-century, straw has been extensively utilised in cattle-feedmg, especially by the best farmers, whose aim it has been to keep well and remuneratively in winter the largest stocks of cattle and sheep the fodder of the farm could sustain with a reasonable addition of auxiliary foods. The late Dr Voelcker once affirmed that "it is undoubtedly a fact that some practical feeder? are in possession of the secret of converting considerable quantities of straw, into beef." The late Mr John Coleman — a known authority on farm management in Great Britain, stated in 1877 that there were many cases within his knowledge in which the largest part of the straw grown on farms passed through the bodies of animals, and he was himself at that very period superintending managament of this nature on Lord Wenlock's farms at Escrick, Yorks. The farm was made up of 220 acres of arable and 430 of pasture land. More than 100 head of cattle aid 400 sheep were kept by the aid of the chaffeutter and pulper, and with the addition of artificial food. Mr Coleman. in the second series of the Royal Agricultural Society's Journal, in detailing the results of the practice, said : "I am qnite certain that by the proper u^e of chopped straw and pulped roots, from one-third to one-fourth more cattle can be kept v 2:1 on a given area of land ' Iq Great Biitaiu the admixture of root pulp with siiaw chaff adverted to by Mr Colem.aa_ received an impetus during &onie

CJii^ecut»\e \ tl 'h oT paiti.l ti.mip Linuie, when fauiKih Tcniiiu it necc-^aiy to cconomiso roots, and the ]>iai.tice ih now almost universally followed. The ro'it pulp and chaff, after being well inteim xed, is allowed to rem un m heaps loi i omc time before being used, 48 lioius not being con.sideied too long, so that the consideiable fermentation induced may cau'e a softening i>nd partial cooking of the straw, thereby rendering it far more digestible. This le^cK natuuilly to lefeience being made lo the method employed by the late Mr Samuel Jona«, as desenbed in the Royal Society's Journal, seco.ul series 1871. and subsequently brought undei the notice of readers- of the Witness repeatedly, of earning out on a Large scale in a systematic way the intermixing of s<raw chaff with green clK'ft fiom clover, grass, vetches tiifolium. ol any other green crop convenient to be chaffed and intermixed with btraw chaff. The iegular practice of Jonas for many yens and which w.<s afterw t ud<. pursued by hi* son. Mr F. Jonas was that of attaching a big chaff-cutter to his threshing machine whenever thres/hing took place, the stiaw passing immediately from the thresher into t.ie chaff-cutter. At the «ame time another sraalki chaff-cutter was set in motion to cut up green chaff derived from any crop on the farm at the time fit for utilisation. rl4ior l4io chaff was then cariied away to be stored in some lar^e barn or other storehouse, and tiodden down in alternate layers of green chaff and straw chaff, salt being abundantly strew n thereon during the process. The green chaff would only be about lewt to the ton in proportion to the straw chaff — just sufficient to cause a very sulutary and effective fermentation, and the food would remain a great many weeks, and even months, before being required to be used. If theie were no green crops m late winter, or early spring, available for use, Mr F. Jonas, in carrying out his father's practice, found that it answeied just as well to mix root pulp with the chaff, and when he threshed in winter he was accustomed to do this. The late Dr Yoelcker acknowledged that Mr Jonas's sj-stem of preparing chaff had another highly valuable feature, as he found the chafi which had been fermented possessed "an exceedingly delicate flavour," and "all the agreeable smell which characterises good green meadow hay. and a hot infusion with water pioduced a liquid that could hardly bs distinguished from hayLea. ' A very important part of the question is a.s to how the different straw s have to be classified in regaid to their feeding value. No treatment of straw can possibly add to it more nutritive property than it had before, but in various ways it can be rendered more digestible and attractive for animals. The late Dr Voelcker placed the nutritive .values of different straws in the following order: — 1 Pea straw, 2 oat &traWj 3 bean straw with the pods, 4 barley straw, 5 wheat straw, 6 bean straw without the pods. The quality of straw, however, very much depends on the degree of ripeness the crop had attained when cut, which will no doubt account for the estimates of all agricultural chemists not being in perfect agreement as to the respective nutritive properties of different kinds of straw. Experienced farmers are constantly in the habit of cutting both oat and wheat crops before they are dead ripe, when they intend the straw to be utilised as fodder, iwell knowing that it proves much more valuable for that purpose without the grain suffering in consequence. ISTo one was more appreciative than the late Dr Voelcker of the very considerable difference which may be found in the nutritive qualities of straw caused by the varied degrees of ripeness the crop had 'been allowed to attain before being cut. Oat straw dried for stacking, one portion of the crop bein^ taken rather green, another fairly ripe, and a third over-ripe, he found to give the following results : —

Dr Voelcker further ascertained that the fermentation to which straw chaff is subjected according to the method of Mr Jonas has the effect ''of rendering the hard and dry substance which constitutes the bulk of the straw more soluble and digestible than it is in its natural condition. ' His table was as follows : —

Straw Chaff Wheat Meadow after Straw Hay. Fermentaiion. Chaff. tfoisturp 14 61 7 76 1333 MI audfdtty matter 256 1 (.0 174 Übutnicous compounds 8 44 4-19 2 93 Jugar, gum, 4c. .. 4107 10 ](i 4£6 )igfStible fibre . — 35 74 19 40 woody fibre 27-Ifi 3454 5413 H ineial matter ... 616 601 421

Cut Rather Green. Wafer 16"00 Albuminoids .. 8 49 Dil 1 57 >uffar, mucilage, Ac 16"04 IVrody fibre, digestible., 26-34 VVcody fibre, indigestible 24 83 Mineral matttr ... 670 Fairly Rile. JfiOO 4 OS ll>s 10 57 SO 17 31 T3 6 oo Overripe. 18-00 365 l-? 5 3-19 £775 4182 6 34 Total 100 00 100 00 100 "CO