498 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



SOILING CROPS FOR MILK PRODUCTION. 



By L. S. Gillette, A. C. McCandlish and H. H. Kildee. 

 Rapid increase in the price of grains and concentrates, used in feeding 

 dairy cows for milk production, has quickened the interest of dairymen 

 in the feeding problem. The urgent demand for human food has re- 

 sulted in a more extended use of cereals for that purpose, a practice 

 which has limited quite largely the quantities of grain available for live 

 stock feeding. The curtailment in the use of grain demands that more 

 reliance be placed upon roughages in the ration in order to supply the 

 nutrients required by heavy producing dairy cows. The importance of 

 leguminous hays and corn silage as a basis for any satisfactory winter 

 ration, which has for its purpose the stimulation of the dairy cow to her 

 most economical production and the efficient saving of grain, has been 

 amply demonstrated. However, the practice in so far as summer feeding 

 may be concerned, is more varied. 



It has long been realized that the pastures on most Iowa dairy farms 

 do not supply an abundance of feed for the cows during the hot dry 

 summer months. The problem of supplying this extra feed most satis- 

 factorily may be solved through following one or more of the methods 

 here enumerated. 



1. Use of larger pastures. 



2. Use of larger quantities of concentrates. 



3. Use of summer silage. 



4. Use of soiling crops. 



Larger acreages of pasture land are not always available, though with 

 better care and more thorough management larger quantities of succulent 

 feed may be obtained from the same area. As the land rises in value, 

 however, the cost of feed secured from pastures increases very consider- 

 ably and this increase is neither sufficient in itself nor always available 

 when needed most and thus dairymen find it a profitable practice to sup- 

 plement their pastures in the majority of instances. In view of the wide 

 shortage of grain, the heavier feeding of concentrates should be discour- 

 aged wherever suitable substitutes may be grown. Experience has indi- 

 cated that the feeding of grain is usually the most expensive manner by 

 which the deficiencies of pasture may be remedied. It is also essential 

 to use the entire crop rather than merely the grain and thereby save a 

 goodly percentage of the total food produced on the farm. 



Supplying green feed is the most satisfactory method of maintaining 

 the flow of milk during the summer when pastures are short; and the 

 green feed may be in the form either of corn silage or of crops especially 

 adapted for soiling purposes. As agricultural methods became more in- 

 tensified with the attendant greater importance of dairy farming, larger 

 yields per acre must be secured. Pastures will be more largely supple- 

 mented by green feed, since much larger quantities of feed may thereby 

 be grown per acre. This will bring about the growing and cultivation of 

 those crops capable of returning the largest yields of palatable and nutri- 

 tious feed. 



