SIXTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VIII. 759 



seven years in condition without spoiling. I have myself fed ensi- 

 large three j'ears old which was perfectly preserved. Corn silage is great- 

 ly relished by, all farm animals including hogs, sheep and poultry. 

 Although a rich succulent and palatable feed that goes well 

 with, and greatly helps the perfect assimilation and digestion of other 

 farm feeds, corn silage is not a well balanced feed in its self and should 

 not be fed exclusively, being too long in carbohydrates and too short in 

 protein. Its protein contents are only two and one-fifth per cent, about 

 half of what green clover and bluegrass represents. Never the less the 

 importance of the natural juices in the digestive functions and healths 

 of the farm animals can never be satisfactorily demonstrated by laba- 

 tory analyses. We all know as farmers by experience how grass will 

 put life and gloss and health to our cattle, how it will round out and make 

 a hog of the runt that was too measly to go with the fat lot. Just as 

 vegetables, fruits and so called condemental foods are indespensable for 

 the health of the human family, so are they likewise necessary for the 

 thrift of live stock, that often are carried six months in the year on dry 

 feed. This is a severe test for animals that are naturally rumanants and 

 habitually brouse on juicy feed, no wonder they emerege from this ordeal 

 and this period of badly balanced rations, as wrecks of their former 

 selves, thin in flesh, and rough in hair, scrambling for the first green blade 

 of grass. The silo will in a great measure counteract this great deficiency 

 of the dry food season and it forms the connecting link between 

 the end and beginning of the grass period. Moreover there will be less 

 trouble in the stable at calving time, less abortion, less retention of 

 after-birth less of such diflaculties as befall animals that are out of con- 

 dition. 



CLOVER VS. ENSILAGE. 



You will answer that clover hay will remedy all these troubles. I 

 admit the great advantages of clover to hay balance up corn and to pro- 

 mote the general health of life stock, but there are serious obstacles in 

 the way of a clover hay crop not common to a silage crop. In this lattl- 

 tude only one year in three can be put down as a clover year, not always 

 can w^e get a perfect stand, nor is the weather always settled in June to 

 cure it in the best shape. Nevertheless in the face of all these difficulties 

 we are justified in using our extreme efforts to secure a crop of clover, and 

 if possible have storage capacity enough to let the year of plenty carry 

 us over the year of shortage. With clover hay added to ensilage and 

 corn we are placed in possession of a variety and kind of feed that will 

 place all farm animals in prime condition of health and thrift. The 

 question should not be ensilage or clover, but ensilage and clover. 



WASTE OF CORN CROP. 



f 

 I have spoken against waste on the farm. It is now a pretty well 

 settled fact, that of the total nourishment at one time represented in 

 the corn plant only 60 per cent is utilized by confining ourselves to the 

 ear and letting the stalk with its 40 per cent go to waste, like hay becom- 

 ing over ripe. This is a serious loss and would be amazing if presented 



