242 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



SILAGE FOR STEER FEEDING. 



Wallaces' 1 Farmer. 



We have from time to time called the attention of our readers to the 

 question as to whether it will pay to feed steers on silage. Heretofore 

 silage has been considered first-class feed for dairy cows and it was sup 

 posed that the silo was the peculiar heritage of the dairymen. It may b^ 

 somewhat surprising to them that quite a number of silos have been put 

 up in Iowa and adjoining states this year to be used for steer feeding pur- 

 poses. The more thoroughly we discuss the question of utilizing the entire 

 farm where dairying is a specialty, or the growing of stock cattle, or the 

 farm where dairying is a specialty, or the growing of stock cattle, or the 

 feeding of steers for the market. At the meeting of the Live Stock 

 Breeders' Association at Bloomington, 111., Professor Henry had some- 

 thing to say on this subject that is worthy of the attention of our readers, 

 as follows: 



"Great Britain has given to the world its finest breeds of beef cattle 

 indeed, practically all of them have come from that favored island. In de- 

 veloping these cattle to their present high degree of perfection roots have 

 played a most imporfant part. The English winters are short and so th-' 

 cattle are much of the time on pasture. Instead of subsisting on dry feed 

 while housed or in the yards, their cattle have always had roots to take 

 the place of fresh grass when deprived of that most important feed article. 



"But the American farmer cannot grow roots. He has been told again 

 and again that he should do so — he has tried it at times, but always given 

 up in despair. Too much time must be spent on an acre of root crops to 

 permit of growing them economically or successfully. Our machinery has 

 been developed wonderfully for the production of crops of corn, reducing 

 the labor of production to the minimum. There is no machinery, how- 

 ever, which will materially aid our farmers in cutting down the cost of 

 producing root crops. While we have had cheap corn to help us in our 

 cattle feeding operations, the English farmer has had root crops to aid 

 him, and thus one has offset the other in some fair measure. In the 

 Mississippi valley we have a continental climate, which forces us tc 

 take our cattle from the pastures, so that they must remain in feed lot 

 or stable from five to seven months in the year. We all believe this to be 

 a hardship. We would prefer to have our cattle upon succulent feed, but 

 we have heretofore seen no way that we could satisfactorily provide for 

 it. Handicapped as we have been in the past, we now have an open door 

 through which we may pass into conditions fully as favorable as those 

 offered the British stock man. Let us seriously consider the introduction 

 of the silo *as a factor in economical beef production. 



"Experience and experiment have both shown that the dairy cow will 

 give a larger yield of milk upon a given amount of dry matter in the 

 form of succulent silage than in the form of dry forage. The difference 

 is not large, but it is still enough to leave no doubt in the matter. Hxper- 



