47^ Bulletin 268. 



(2) Beets always increased the flow of milk and the total yield of 

 butter fat, but this increase has never been sufficient to offset the addi- 

 tional consumption of food. 



(3) Cows fed on beets showed an increase in live weight, while those 

 fed on silage remained about the same. 



(4) Beets did not decrease the amount of water drank, although fed 

 in such quantities as to increase the watery content of the food 30 pounds 

 per day. 



(5) The experiments did not justify the assumption that the dry 

 matter of beets is any more effective, pound for pound, than the dry 

 matter of silage made from well-matured corn containing 13 to 18% 

 of grain. 



(6) In the region where the tests were made, and as the average of 

 ten years' culture of corn and field beets side by side, two pounds of 

 dry matter was produced in the form of corn silage at a less cost than 

 one pound of dry matter in the form of beets. 



(7) A question was suggested by the experiments as to whether beets 

 might not be used to advantage in comparatively small quantities 

 fed as appetizers. 



(8) While silage made from comparatively mature corn showed best 

 results in general, the experiments suggested that the silage should be 

 made before the corn had reached full maturity. 



From the Massachusetts Hatch Station"^ a report was reviewed showing 

 results apparently opposite to those obtained at the Ohio Station. Four 

 new milk cows were fed for four periods of three weeks each on alternate 

 rations containing equal amounts of hay and grain, but with 30 pounds 

 of silage in one case and 40 pounds of mangels in the other. It was 

 reported that it cost one and one-half to two times as much to produce 

 mangels as silage, and that the mangel crop was much the more uncer- 

 tain of the two; furthermore, that the cows gave more milk and more 

 cream when receiving silage, and gained weight, whereas the opposite 

 was true when the mangel ration was fed. There might be a question 

 as to the reliability of these assumptions when the results are studied 

 from the dry matter basis, because the mangel ration would contain 

 only about one-half as much dry matter in the succulent part of the 

 ration as would the silage ration. 



The Pennsylvania Station^ reported that the cost of growing, harvest- 

 ing and storing an acre of beets was more than double the amount required 

 for an acre of corn, charging each crop the same rent for land and the 



* Hatch Experiment Station. Fifth Annual Report, Jan., 1893. Page 153. 

 + Pennsylvania Station Bulletin No. 26. 



