970 New York State Dairyme:n's Association 



quite an iiu})urlaiit questioii what crops we shall raise. I do not 

 want to infringe upon Professor Van Pelt's talk this afternoon 

 on feeding the dairy cow, but I must oive you niy idea about it. 

 The dairy farmer ought to raise alfalfa or cloyer, or some legume, 

 and corn sila<>-o. Eyery dairy cow on a farm in Xew York or 

 Michigan ought to haye all the good corn silage and all the 

 cloyer hay she ^vill eat up clean eyery day she is kept in 

 the stable. Why? Because \ye can produce more food per acre 

 with corn than any other plant, and because it is easily pro- 

 duced in a succulent form. Again we cannot farm success- 

 fully imless we grow cloyer or alfalfa. I am not prepared to say 

 here this morning how large an area of alfalfa you should grow. 

 I am not prepared to say that you should substitute alfalfa en- 

 tirely for cloyer. I am not prepared to say that you should go 

 as far as that. I do not know. I am trying to work out that 

 problem myself, whether I can giye up this wonderful plant, red 

 cloyer, entirely and grow nothing but alfalfa. But I am pre- 

 pared to say that we should grow some alfalfa on eyery dairy farm. 

 I do not belieye there is any soil in Xew Y'ork or ^Michigan that 

 will not produce alfalfa successfully if started. We should haye 

 this legume. We cannot hope to keep up the fertility of our farms, 

 the mechanical condition of our soils, to grow profitable crops for 

 any considerable length of time unless we grow either cloyer or 

 alfalfa. There is not any question about that from the practical 

 standpoint. If we do not know how to grow them, the first thing 

 we should do is to learn how. We must haye them if we want to 

 make farming a permanent success. That is the foundation. 

 They are good feeds for the dairy cow, rich in protein. Bed 

 cloyer is just about a balanced ration, one pound of protein to six 

 ixtunds of carbohydrates. If it was not so bulkv it would not be 

 uc'cessary to raise anything else to make a balanced ration for the 

 dairy cow. ])Ut we want to raise com also. We must make a suc- 

 cess of raising corn. There may be places where it is impossible 

 to make a success of raising corn for market, but I belieye there is 

 no place in this country where we cannot make a success of 

 raising ensilage corn. We can raise more cow feed per acre in 

 Indian Cdrn than any other known plant. We can saye it 

 in the silo and })reserve its succulency and feed it to the dairy cow 



