THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK PART VI. 245 



head per day in the first thirty days and gained fifty-five pounds each 

 with no other feed than dead grass, of which they ate but little. 



The second month they were fed a third of a full feed of shock corn 

 in eonnection with what silage they would eat, less in amount than the 

 previous month, and this month made a gain of seventy-five pounds per 

 head. 



They were then put in dry lots and fed ten pounds of clover hay in 

 addition to the corn fodder. He commenced selling about the first of 

 February and sold in three different lots, but the result of the entire 

 feeding period, ranging from 120 to 150 days, was a gain of 2.25 pounds 

 per day and consumed, estimating the silage to contain 10 per cent of 

 its weight in ear corn, less than one-half of the corn which he had been 

 accustomed to feed heretofore. He adds that it costs no more to put the 

 corn in the silo than in the shock and that it costs only about one-fourth 

 as much to feed it as it does shock corn. Part of this ensilage war a 

 mixture of corn and soy beans from which better results were secured 

 as might be expected, than from the pure corn ensilage. 



He has also carried through the winter about 300 head of 900-pound 

 steers on ensilage alone with better results than he had ever secured 

 with stock cattle wintered on hay and fodder. He regards the ideal feed 

 for fattening 1,000-pound steers to be all the clover hay and corn ensilage 

 they will eat, and about fifteen pounds of corn per day with a little oil 

 meal added during the last month. Stock steers, yearling, and two-year 

 olds get along nicely without any grain at all and can be wintered, in hi? 

 judgment, in this way better than under the old method. 



While we have never had any experience in feeding steers on silage, 

 we sort o' feel it in our bones that this is to be the coming method and 

 hope to be able before long to add our own experience to that of others. 



B. ALFALFA. 



ALFALFA IN IOWA. 



O. H. Barnhill, Shenandoah. Iowa. 



In the arid and semi-arid regions of the west alfalfa is one of the 

 most profitable crops that can be grown. Here in Iowa, where conditions 

 are so different, it is a question whether it pays to grow alfalfa, and, if 

 so, in what cases. It makes good hay, and plenty of it. but so does red 

 clover. 



Alfalfa is not a success as a rotation crop to restore fertility. Unlikf 

 red clover, it is a perennial and does not attain its full size until the 

 third year. Red clover will occupy the ground one year sooner, thus sav- 

 ing a year's time. The other objection to alfalfa as a rotation crop is 

 the great difficulty of ploughing it up. With a sharp plough and four 

 good horses it is a big day's work to plough one acre of alfalfa sod. 



