Transactions of RHASS Volume 1940 - Page 019
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| Year | 1940 |
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I ‘II I l“ 'f-‘n fll‘l ' [i l H l I 26 STOCK-FEEDING UNDER WAR CONDITIONS. by drawing the carts over the heap in the process of building it. As soon as the carting is finished the sloping ends should be cut away and the material thrown on top. The day after the heap is finished a good layer of earth, ten or twelve inches thick, should be spread on top and, after the heap has settled, the sides should be earthed up. With maincrops, if the proportion of disease is not unduly high and if the crop is likely to be marketed in autumn or early winter, the utilisation of broke presents no difficulty. On the other hand, if the crop is to be held until late winter or spring, most of the diseased tubers will be rotten before the time of marketing, and if there is much disease there will be a heavy loss of what might have been useful food. This loss cannot be prevented without a good deal of expense, and a good deal of extra labour at what is usually a busy season on the potato-growing farm. But things that would be unprofitable in ordinary times may be worth consideration under war conditions, and therefore a scheme for the saving of maincrop broke is worth describing. That used in Germany is as follows. The crop is dressed as it is lifted, and only the sound seed and ware are pitted. As soon as lifting is completed the broke, which has been thrown aside and roughly covered, is steamed or boiled and ensiled. A pit is used in this case. It may be about six feet wide, about three feet deep, and is made as long as may be necessary. The sides should have some slope, and it is an advantage to line the sides and bottom with straw. The potatoes are boiled or steamed (the latter being better) for about three- quarters of an hour, are put into the pit as hot as possible, and are well trodden down. The top is drawn to a ridge and is beaten with the spade to get a firm Surface. This is then covered with a layer of straw and finally with a heavy and well-rammed layer of soil. Potato silage made in this way is a good food for cattle and for any pigs above four months old. Where the necessary steaming plant is not available, bins or troughs may be used to hold the potatoes and a traction-engine hired to supply steam. CROPS FOR STOCK-FEEDING. It is too early to draw up any detailed scheme of cropping for next season, for it is impossible yet to predict the con- ditions under which the farmer will have to work in 1941—- the labour situation, the position with regard to fertilisers, the number of tractors that will be available, and so on. Moreover, beyond a further increase in the arable acreage, it is impossible to suggest any major alterations in cropping STOCK-FEEDING UNDER WAR CONDITIONS. 27 that would be likely to produce substantially larger amounts of the kinds of stock food that are required. In Scotland turnips and swedes, oats and hay must remain the chief crops for winter stock food. The following few notes deal with relatively minor points. Some increase in the acreage of beans, on all the stronger soils, will be a wise precaution. In many cases a higher yield of food per acre will be got from a mixture of oats and beans (mashlum) than from the two crops grown separately. Marrow-stem kale has been given a trial in most parts of Scotland, and most farmers already know whether or not it is a more profitable crop, for autumn feeding, than turnips. The general opinion is that it is better than turnips for dairy cows, that it will keep more sheep, acre for acre, than turnips, but that it is less suitable for the later stages of fattening. The only special merits of kale under war-time conditions are that it does well on old turf and that, if it is well dosed with nitrogen, it is a far better smotherer of weeds than a crop of turnips. Hence when grown on rather dirty land it requires less labour than turnips. On farms Where calf-rearing is carried on there is a case for growing a small acreage of linseed, though it must be admitted that the ordinary yield is not heavy—about 10 cwt. of seed per acre. Moreover, the straw is quite useless for feeding. Plate (Argentine) linseed is the most suitable for seed production of the common commercial types, but steps have been taken to build up stocks of the best pure varieties for next season. It is, of course, desirable that a due balance should be maintained as between grain and green crops in time of war, for nothing will do more to solve the winter stock-feeding problem, and to keep the land in condition, than a large acreage of turnips, swedes, 860. But labour conditions may well set a limit to the acreage of roots that can be grown and kept clean, and a second or third white straw crop may, in many cases, have to be taken where a cleaning crop would have been the normal thing. Where grain must be sown on dirty land it will generally be the lesser evil to choose a late-sown crop of barley. If an early-ripening variety of barley be used, sowing may be delayed till the end of May or even the beginning of June; some cleaning operations should be possible during May, and the crop, grong rapidly under the warm conditions, will usually keep weeds under some measure of control. This late sowing of early-ripening barley was the only means used by our ancestors to control Weeds on their ‘infield’ land, which carried a white crop every year. Naturally, a malting sample of grain is hardly to be expected, but with pigs at current prices it should be profitable to grow barley for feeding purposes. According |
| Title | Transactions of RHASS Volume 1940 - Page 019 |
