DAIRYING. 



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opportunity, have declared without a dissenting vote for "ears 

 and all" in the silo. The grinding of an ear of corn makes it 

 not one whit better cow feed. To be sure if the silage is well 

 matured some of the kernels will pass through the animal and 

 go into the manure ; but the loss in this way is not so large as 

 the miller's toll. 



OuES. In what state should the corn be cut for the silo? 



Ans. Corn is best cut when the ears are quite well glazed. 

 The plant nearly or quite doubles its food value in the last month 

 of its life, and he who ensiles an immature corn loses a large 

 amount of potential food and makes an inferior silage. Two 

 years ago we grew experimentally a very large variety of corn 

 from Virginia, the stalks 12 or 14 feet high. Passers by the field 

 would say, "What a magnificent growth of corn you have! I 

 want to get some of that seed." From the same area on which 

 we cut 100 pounds of Sanford corn we cut 160 pounds of this 

 large corn. There was just as much food in the 100 pounds of 

 Sanford as in the 160 pounds of the larger corn. We had to 

 handle the extra 60 pounds which was all water and give it silo 

 room and the silage was poorer than the Sanford silage. You 

 should grow such varieties of corn as will come to maturity in 

 your latitude. 



A large share of the grain purchased in Vermont is corn meal. 

 Three million five hundred thousand dollars a year, more than 

 ten dollars for every man, woman and child resident in that state, 

 is paid for grain, and nearly $2,000,000 of that sum is paid for 

 Western corn meal. That is an economic sin. Northern New 

 England grows more bushels of corn to the acre than is grown in 

 the West, and yet our farmers go out there and import it. You 

 ought to grow more corn here, not necessarily more to the acre 

 but more acres. Grow all the corn you may, but do not buy it. 

 When you buy, buy bran, cottonseed, linseed or gluten, some of 

 those products that are rich in protein. 



How much grain shall we feed to our cow machine ? We have 

 had twenty or more cows under experiment at Burlington for 

 three years with a view of determining how much grain it was 

 economical to feed them. We have not depended on chemists 

 except to tell us what the food was, but have asked the cows 

 themselves. We have found that with our cows, which averaged 

 about 350 pounds of butter a year, in years of normal prices 



