128 agriculture: of MAINE. 



protein. But I am trying to look at these feeds from the stand- 

 point of the market price. If we should go through the same 

 process with oat hay, we should find that it would have about 

 the same feeding value, so far as costs are concerned, as mixed 

 hay. It will come almost to $15 a ton. 



Another feed which I wish to figure out with you here is corn 

 silage, because we are quite apt to think that has very little value. 

 I have taken for figures here, possibly a little unfairly, Maine 

 yellow corn that will mature sufficiently to glaze. I have very 

 little sympathy with sour silage, and as long as we use a corn 

 that will not glaze in our latitude, we shall be liable to make 

 sour silage. I have a friend in Connecticut who is allowing his 

 corn to ripen. He picks the ears, then cuts the com stover and 

 wets it dowM, and he is getting a silage which he likes much 

 better than when it is cut green. 



Corn silage of the type I have mentioned will carry, in 100 

 pounds, 1.8 pounds of protein, 13.6 of carbohydrates and .7 

 pounds of fat. The fat is not worth much but we will call it 

 1.6 carbohydrates, which added to the 13.6 will give 15.2 pounds 

 equivalent carbohydrate material. The protein, at 2.7 cents per 

 pound, is worth 4.9 cents; the carbohydrates at i 1-3 cents, are 

 worth 20.3 ; a total of 25.2 cents. That is a little over $5.00 

 a ton. So that silage which we can grow, probably, for $3.00 

 a ton, when we compare it as a roughage with our mixed hay 

 at $15 per ton, is worth $5.00. Do not get the idea that I am 

 comparing feeding values; these are commercial values. If I 

 were to figure out corn stover, it would be a little below timothy 

 hay, about $14 a ton. 



THE COST OF NUTRIENTS IN OATS. 



I want to consider for a moment some foods we are producing 

 on the farm. Oats will carry 8.9 per cent of protein, 50.1 per 

 cent nitrogen-free extract, and 3 per cent of fat which is equiv- 

 alent to 6.75 per cent carbohydrates. Adding this to 50.1 we 

 have 56.85 per cent equivalent carbohydrate material, and multi- 

 plying that by 1.8 cents, assuming that in our grains the carbo- 

 hydrates have the same value as in corn meal, we find that the 

 carbohydrates in oats are worth $1.02 per hundred. Multiply- 

 ing 8.9 by 2.7 cents, we find that the protein is worth 24 cents 



