STATE DAIRY ASSOCIATION. 307 



Mr. Gurler — The very thing. Alfalfa is not half appreciated. 

 Mr. Phipps — In Kansas it is worth $7 a ton. 



Mr. Gurler — Then Kansas is the place to feed it to steers. If you 

 cannot make money there by feeding steers, I don't know who can. 



THE SILO. 



Mr. Gurler — As to the silo in dairying, I do not know whether it 

 is practical to urge the use of the silo; I don't know whether you are ready 

 for it. But I will go over this briefly. My silos are built circular and 

 cemented inside with Portland cement, and we use 2 by 4 studding, 13 

 inch centers. Then w^e sheet inside of that with half inch lumber, on 

 which we put a beveled lath made from this half inch lumber. This 

 is put on v;ith openings about half an inch between them and we place 

 on to that the Portland cement, putting it on Yz to f s inch thick. We 

 find that this Portland cement is thoroughly impervious to water and 

 to the air and it protects the silage from the air and also protects the 

 lumber from any moisture in the silage, so that the lumber does not de- 

 cay from damage. 



If you want any more information in regard to that kind of a silo 

 write to President Jos. Newman, Elgin, Illinois, and he will send you a 

 bulletin that was gotten out by the State Dairymen's Association of Illi- 

 nois incorporating a lot of work that Brother Glover had done in Illi- 

 nois, and taking up the building of silos and estmiating the cost. 



Now I have been using silage for nearly 25 years. I was an 

 enthusiast from the first. I never went crazy over it, but my confidence 

 has been increasing from year to year and I never was so firmly fixed 

 in the opinion that it is a necessity on the dairy farm — never — as I am 

 now. It is just as much superior to dry feed as canned fruit is to dry 

 fruit, or the green apple to the dried apple. That is a fair comparison. 



Mr. How do you like blue grass pasture? We have some 



beautiful blue grass pasture here in Missouri. 



Mr. Gurler — I like it very well, but I want clover in my pasture. I 

 pasture a couple of years and then I plant it in corn and if I want to raise 

 a crop of corn, I get 15 bushels more to the acre out of clover than blue 

 grass or timothy sod. 



Mr. AVill cows produce more milk on clover than on blue 



grass ? 



Mr. Haecker — I know of nothing better than blue grass. 



Mr. Phipps — I saw a pasture put in blue grass that had never been 

 touched before and it is wonderful how much that pasture yileded and 

 the results obtained froin it. 



