A NEW FODDER PLANT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 447, 13 March 1912, Page 3

A NEW FODDER PLANT.

If Helianti is all that it is claimed to be, it proniisse to occupy an important place on farms situated in localities suited to its growth. According to the Natal Agricultural Journal the plant hails from North America, and "that, in its present form, it is the result of years of careful cultivation by a leading French horticultural expert. It belongs to the leguminous class of plants—one fact alone which give its an interest in the eyes of the progressive farmer—and it is stated to make excellent green fodder, ensilage or hay (having an enormous growth above ground), and exceeds both in green an dry weight and animal food the best known forage plants such as clover, sainfoin, etc. We further read that "the dry weight is alone exceeded by lucerrne, the proportion being 24 per cent, in helianti to 26 per cent, in

lucerne, but heiianti produces no less than three times the weight of growth per t acre, and according to the analysis contains the extraordinary amount of over 7 per cent, of sugar in the dry forage." Such .statements as these would themselves be sufficient to excite widespread interest in this new plant, but this is not all, for heiianti also produces "a huge crop of tubers of extreme value, in weight exceeding that per acre of potatoes several times over, and indeed rivalling that of the mangel. Horses, cattle, pigs and sheep all eat them greedily and do well upon them. Horses prefer them to mange! even when fresh raised. Cows do well and give more milk and butter when fed upon heiianti either as tubers, hay or ensilage, and the butter possesses the very best of flavour, even better than that produced oy feeding lucerne. Pigs fed upon the tubers make the best flavoured pork on the market. Poultry feed well and fatten quickly upon a mixture of half-cooked tubers and bran." As might be expected, however, a heavy crop of forage and of tubers cannot be raised the same season; if a crop of tubers is desired, then no forage must be cut. but all allowed to mature. The dense growth then dies back, and the tubers resulting may be raised late in the autumn.