266 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



crease the butter-product any, aud the milk but very slightly. 

 Its value depends wholly upon where you use it. There is 

 where the chemist cannot help you. The fact is, that, by ex- 

 periment stations, you have got to get exact knowledge, and 

 then you will get more and more light upon which you can 

 work. We want theories to set the investigator at work to 

 get facts, but the facts must come before we can formulate 

 the law. 



Question. How do you get your cattle to eat up dry 

 corn-stalks clean? 



Mr. Sanborn. I don't. They will leave, perhaps, twenty 

 per cent when they are fed with corn-fodder alone ; but 

 where I feed, as I am now feeding my cows for instance, a 

 ration of clover-hay, a ration of straw, and a ration of corn- 

 fodder, they eat up substantially the whole of the corn-fod- 

 der ; but there is a little left, — sixteen per cent. 



Mr. Merrick. The figures show that it costs about a 

 dollar a ton to cut the corn, and put it in the silo. What 

 does it cost to cure your corn in the ordijiary manner, get it 

 into the barn, and, when it comes time to feed it, cut it up ? 



Mr. Sanborn. I do not cut it. 



Mr. Merrick. Does not the cost of curing it and getting 

 it into the barn, and the amount of waste (twenty per cent), 

 make a greater sum than the one dollar that it takes to put 

 corn-fodder into the silo ? 



Mr. Sanborn. I have made some estimates upon that 

 matter for myself. I do not think it does. I think the 

 balance is on the right side. 



Mr. . How much ? 



Mr. Sanborn. I cannot say; perhaps fifteen or twenty 

 per cent. It is not a large matter, but the orts are worth 

 about half the value for bedding. I charge them to the stock 

 at three dollars for bedding. That is credited to bedding, 

 and the remainder I charge to the animal. In the first 

 place, there is one point worth observing in the growth of 

 your corn, — most of the artificial supply of plant-nutrition 

 that it takes to grow and mature a crop of corn — the potash, 

 etc. — is found in the corn-stalks. Corn-meal is quite carbona- 

 ceous ; and you will find that half or two-thirds of the plant- 

 nutrition is in the corn-fodder itself; and there will be left in 

 the orts, for plant-food, not, perhaps, what I charge to it, but 



