COUNTRY LIFE
HAY-MAKING is one of the oldest processes of agriculture, for the cutting and drying of grass comes out of the distant past of the wooden plough. Modern research proves that it is a wasteful process, so wasteful that as much as half the nutritional value of the crop is lost in the sun and rain. • The protein vanishes and often a rough fibre is all that remains. Perhaps this is a black picture of the result of a day's work in the sun, but it can be so. Ensiling grass prevents the heavy protein loss. The crop can be cut and carried without the drying-out operation and the cows are so fond of the product of the silage pit or tower that they are loth to eat anything else. It is not a new thing, of course, but so conservative is the man who works on the land that he still wonders about consigning a field of growing hay to a hole in the ground.
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