270 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



after I have harvested my corn, I have got to pay out money 

 again for cotton-seed meal. If I do the other way, I feel as- 

 though I am doing a little safer business, because I am hav- 

 ing money coming in instead of going out. That is the point 

 with me. Other farmers who can pay out large sums of 

 money just as well as not, and who get their incomes at a 

 season of the year when I have but little coming in, and who 

 get them from some other source besides the farm, can afford, 

 perhaps, to have silos. If the time comes when those who 

 can well afford these experiments (for I consider that they 

 are experiments yet) can prove to the satisfaction of every- 

 body that they are getting rich out of it, I have no doubt 

 that we poor fellows will follow them ; but it will be only 

 a question of time. We shall lose a few years of enormous 

 profits, perhaps ; but still, if I pay my way, and am happy all 

 the time, I think that is the great thing. It seems to me, 

 that, if I had to go and hire four or five hundred dollars to 

 build a silo, I should begin to be a little uneasy. There would 

 not be an absolute certainty of that four or five hundred dol- 

 lars coming back again ; and I do not know as I should sleep 

 quite as well as I should if I felt that my corn was grow- 

 ing, and I was going to harvest it in the old way, and 

 knew just about how much work it was going to be, and 

 just about what it would do for my cows when I fed it out. 

 Again : if I had valuable cows that I did not feel as though 

 I could afford to experiment with, or fine horses, it seems to 

 me that I should not feel quite as safe to feed them with a 

 fodder that I knew nothing about, and with which we in 

 this country have had but little experience. I should feel, 

 as I went into the barn and looked over the cows and the' 

 horses, that possibly they might come out as I have been told 

 Mr. Bailey's sheep came out last winter. I do not know as 

 it is so ; but I have understood that he lost a good many of 

 his sheep that were fed on ensilage. We have yet to demon- 

 strate, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that this food is not 

 only cheap, but also that it is a food which is good for the 

 health of our animals. You know, many of you, that the 

 steaming-process had its day. It was considered a great dis- 

 covery, and for a long while men fed it without any trouble. 

 I know a man to-day who feeds fifty good cows, that are 

 worth a good deal of money, on steamed food. He has fed 



