No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 827 



can buy for 7 or 8 cents a gallon. It is a black and bitter stuff as it 

 comes to you, but when diluted witli water it becomes sweet, and 

 when the water that is used to soften the fodder is sweetened with 

 this molasses, I have noticed quite an increase of eagerness on the 

 part of the stoclc to take it. My men haA^e said, ''Why don't you 

 sweeten the water before putting it into the silo?" There would be 

 fermentation and some alcohol. It is not in keeping with temper- 

 ance principles, but it is very good for young cows. 



MK. THOMPSON: Would it increase the flow of milk? 



DR. NEAL: I have made no observation. I only notice that they 

 eat it better. 



The PRESIDENT: In regard to the home production of protein, 

 looking- at it upon the commercial side, it would seem that if we can 

 buy it cheaper than we can raise it that we would not be warranted 

 in raising it. I had a feeling that there is a good deal of sentiment 

 in the advocacy of raising everything on the farm, and especially 

 in raising our own protein. I am aware, however, that there is the 

 question of the fertilzation and the value of the residue in the soil. 

 It is, hov/ever, a question whether under many conditions it is not 

 cheaper to buy proteiji than to raise it. If we can raise 16 to 25 tons 

 of silage to the acre, even if there is no protein in it, from the feed- 

 er's standpoint it is a question whether we are not going to make 

 more monej' so that we can afford to buy our extract proteids.. It 

 seems to me that this is the side of the question not usually consid- 

 ered. 



DR. NEAL: The question of the provisions for the future is the 

 point. Some of us can remember a decade ago when bran sold at 

 |10 a ton and some of us have paid from |21 to $23 this year. We 

 know that the dairymen of Minnesota and AVisconsin are putting 

 butter into the Philadelphia markets and they are using bran at the 

 price at which we used to secure it. At a recent agricultural meet- 

 ing held at Atlanta, I attempted to buy between 60 and 70 tons of 

 cotton seed meal for a little circle of farmers in our neighborhood. 

 I made a rather close study of the markets around Atlanta and I 

 found that I could not possibly buy cotton seed meal in Georgia and 

 send it up to Philadelphia. W^e were driven to other parts of the 

 South to get our cotton seed; and, throughout the session whenever 

 I approached a Southern man about buying cotton 'seed I was told 

 that every effort was being made to utilize it at home. What we 

 got later in the year we got from tidewater; where it came from I 

 do not know; some from Nashville and some from Texas. We must 

 make some arrangement whereby we can supply our own protein. 

 Sugar beet is a good product and a good cattle food. When one 



