GREEN CROPS FOR PIGS.

Shannon News, 3 February 1925, Page 3

GREEN CROPS FOR PIGS.

Green crops proper are a great help to the pig feeder, as in a favourable seaso-a they give an immense yield for a very small outlay. Probably the most valuable of these is Chou moellier or marrow-stem kale., now largegrown us a fodder crop for all kinds of stock, and it is doubtful whether ' there is anything of the kind that pays - better for pig feeding. This kale will yield as much as 30 tons to the acre, and if we take its feeding value to be no more tha-'u a twelfth of that of barley-meal, this means that such a crop would, at the present time, when meal is worth close on £2O per ton, represent a return of at least £45 per acre. This kale should be sown at intervals from spring onwards to the middle of summer, or eve"a later, and will come in for use in the autumn. It stands a certain amount of frost, but it is best to begin using it before the stems get too hard. The plant Should be given plenty of room m order that it may develop properly, for the thfcig to aim at for pig feeding i« a big fctum rather than an abundance of leafy growth, although the leaves as well as the stems are good food and much liked by pig 3. Thousand-headed kale is also a useful food, producing, as it does, an abundance ol leaves which pigs are very found of. It should be sown i'n April and well thinned, and will then come in after the marrow-stem kale early in the year. Rape is another good food, its great advantage being that it matures quickly, being ready to feed off within three months of sowing. Though not of the same feeding value as kale, this crop is a cheap one to grow. It is an excellent crop for foul land, the growth being so strong and rapid that weeds have but little chalce.