244 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



explicit in the statement that a food properly dried is as 

 digestible as the same food in a green state. In three seasons' 

 Avork, I have fed from eighty to a hundred pounds of fodder- 

 corn against twenty pounds of hay, and even when the latter 

 amount has been used, the hay has given the best results; yet 

 it is claimed that from forty to sixty pounds of ensilage are 

 equal to twenty pounds of hay. I will give a partial state- 

 ment that represents the tenor of my results with corn-fodder 

 fed against hay. 



Four were cows, fed in lots of two each, in August. 

 Prior to test, lot 1 gave, on pasture-grass, 30.17 pounds milk 

 daily. Prior to test, lot 2 gave, on pasture-grass, 80.60 

 pounds milk daily. Test or second period, lot 1 gave, on 

 grass and a hundred pounds fodder-corn, 30.44 pounds milk 

 daily. Test or second period, lot 2 gave, on grass and twenty 

 pounds hay, 32.44 pounds milk daily. 



In the above, five pounds corn-fodder were fed against one 

 pound of hay, and the hay gave the best results ; whereas 

 we are told two or three pounds of coi-n-f odder ensilage are 

 equivalent to one pound of hay. I have a mass of facts 

 regarding corn-fodder, from which the corn has been har- 

 vested, fed in winter against hay. The elements of critical 

 comparison do not exist between this corn-fodder and hay, 

 and green fodder-corn and hay ; yet the amount and char- 

 acter of the dry matter fed in either case, and the effects of 

 either source in milk and butter product, when compared 

 with the same standard of dry hay, make it certain to me 

 that little, if any thing, is to be credited to corn-fodder, 

 because green fed. 



If it will be allowed as having an important indirect bear- 

 ing on the subject, I may say that for four years I have 

 yearly, to steers and cows, fed roots (green food) in winter. 

 The weight of cows, milk-flow, butter-product, and hay eaten, 

 have been taken for comparison with and without roots. 

 The weight of steers, and the effect of a ration of roots 

 added to hay on the amount of hay eaten, have been taken. 

 Tliousands of weighings may be summed up in the j)hrase, 

 " A pound of green food in form of roots has been no more 

 effective than in hay." The statement will bear being put a 

 little stronger. 



