598 BOARD OF AGRICULTURK. 



Mr. Huish: We average or try to have them come in at various 

 periods, so as to keep up the supply of millc, iu order to supply the amount 

 of butter we need each week. 



• 



Mr. Goodrich: We know, and so does every man that has kept cows, 

 that succulent feed, with the natural juices in it, will aid iu the produc- 

 tion of milk. A cow will produce more milk on that kind of feed, than 

 where the natural juices are dried up. With the silage you can feed 

 cheaper, because it is all digestible, and it is a succulent feed, and the 

 cost of putting up the silage is less than cutting and handling the corn 

 any other way. And you get mere of it, and more from it; so it is 

 economy in this light, at any rate. I don't know further south where they 

 can get gra.ss in the winter, they may not need it, but I think it would 

 pay any dairyman here to have a silo. I think if he puts it in the right 

 state, and feeds It right, he can produce butter cheaper. Perhaps you 

 have discovered it by this time, I am one of these fellows who is always 

 figuring, and must know the cost of a thing. Farmers say they can't 

 tell the cost of their stuff. I would not farm a minute if I could not tell 

 the cost, or be a merchant unless I know what my goods cost, or be a 

 manufacturer a minute (as I am now) unless I knew what it cost to 

 produce the goods. I used to figure what a pound of butter cost me, 

 Avork and everything else. I have held my watch on the boys, so that 

 I knew the cost of producing a pound of butter. My cows produced about 

 300 pounds of butter per coav. It cost me IG cents a pound the year 

 before I had the silo, counting all the work at just what I would have 

 had to pay for it, counting the board of the ones that worked. My butter 

 cost me 16 cents. It averaged me more than twice that when I sold it, 

 I wanted to make more. Do you know, man works to be satisfied? He 

 isn't much of a man if he is satisfied. If a man is satisfied this world 

 is no place for him. Then I put up a silo, and figured it just the same 

 way as close as I could, and it cost me 12 cents a pound to produce the 

 butter. I reduced the cost of production 4 cents a pound by using the 

 silage. I wasn't trying to prove that a silo was good or bad, but I 

 found out it was a cheaper feed. It took less labor to feed the cows, 

 and the cows produced fifty pounds more butter in a year at 32 cents 

 a pound. Don't you see how it is counted up? It is possible that fifty 

 pounds was not all caused by the silo, because I was gradually building 

 up my herd, gradually raising it to be a little better each year; but I 

 made a bigger jump that year when I changed and put in the silo. I 

 must insist it will pay any good tidy farmer to build a silo. I know 

 some of those kind of men in Wisconsin, and I presume there are some 

 ' men as shiftless down here as they have up there. Poor, shiftless farmers 

 never do anything right, or on time. A silo will not do them any good. 

 It will leak, or it will not be put in right. Such a farmer will not get 

 his corn in until too late, and it will heat and mildew, and when he 



