ANIMAL GROWTH AND NUTRITION. 261 



every muck-bed was a mine of wealth, ami would make a 

 man rich at a bound. But where is muck now, after twenty 

 or thirty years? I am not here to denounce muck: it has its 

 place, but it is not going to revolutionize farming. The silo 

 has its place, in a very modest way ; but it is not going to 

 make you all wealthy. I believe in corn as strongly as any 

 ensilagist in the countrj^, but a silo is not necessary to grow 

 it. You can grow it, and, I believe, feed more cattle from 

 an acre of corn matured than you can from an acre of ensi- 

 lage. If you look at the science of it, you will find that 

 the chemists have discovered that the nitrogen of the plant 

 has not been organized into flesh-formers at the time you 

 cut it for ensilaging. I cut my hay after bloom ; though 

 I was, previous to experimenting, an ardent advocate of 

 cutting as it went into bloom. I had to change my opinion 

 after ten different experiments. Now, the scientists tell 

 us that at the time of bloom the plant contains nitrogen 

 not organized as albuminoids, and it is only as albuminoids 

 that you can use it to make flesh : that is to say, the plant 

 is not fully organized as food at the time of bloom. After 

 collecting from personal work and the work of others all 

 the facts I can, I do not believe that its development after- 

 wards will decrease its nutritive value. Mere reasoning 

 will not settle the problem, but facts seem to corroborate 

 this view. We know that plants have not completed their 

 growth at that time. I find grass increases from thirty 

 to forty per cent from early bloom to full formation of 

 seed. Now, your corn-fodder, as it is grown thick, cut at 

 that early period, has some materials in the sap not organ- 

 ized into plant-tissue, which will never have tlie food-value 

 that they would have if the corn were allowed to mature. 

 That, I submit, is a valid objection to this innovation ; it 

 favoring a crop so thickly grown as to fail to mature, and 

 yet yielding no more dry matter per acre than matured field- 

 corn. 



I did not intimate for a moment this morning that the 

 cost of the silo should be charged to the first crop, as the 

 gentleman makes me say. I did say that he himself, and 

 two other gentlemen, had said that their silos cost them 

 three dollars for every ton of capacity. Now, if you grow 

 twenty-five tons of corn-fodder, that is seventy-five dollars 



