644 ^ Repobt of the Firbt Assistant of the 



favorable result from the trial of silage made from equal parts of 

 green corn fodder aud green soja bean fodder was reported from 

 the Massachusetts Expeiiment Station, summarized as follows: 

 " Corn and soja bean silage has proved itself fully equal if not 

 superior to hay in producing a yield of milk, without affecting 

 the quality, aud ai the same lime decreasing the absolute cost." 

 At the Vermont Experiment Station the results of a short feed- 

 ing trial were thought to promise as good returns from oat-and- 

 vetch and oat-and-pea silage as from corn silage. 



Silage and Roots. 



The advantage of having some of the food for milch cows 

 during the winter in a succulent form is very generally appre- 

 ciated, and the results derived from the addition of roots to the 

 ration have often been out of proportion to the actual amount 

 of food constituents supplied by them. For feeding cows for a 

 while before calving, roots are better than silage, and silage 

 could not economically supplant roots where too few animals 

 are kept to warrant the expense of building a silo, or to empty 

 a silo fast enough to prevent the loss from decay at the surface. 

 Where many cows are kept, however, corn silage is a much 

 cheaper food for milk production than roots. Some of the results 

 obtained at this Station from rations containing roots compared 

 with those from rations containing silage have been noticed in 

 Bulletin No. 97. 



At the Ohio Experiment Station the same amount of dry 

 matter of the food was found to produce on the average about 

 six per cent, more milk from corn silage than beets. At the 

 average yield, the cost of dry matter in beets was more than 

 double that of the corn. 



In a feeding trial at the Pennsylvania Experiment Station 

 more butter was produced when cows were fed silage than when 

 fed beets. The cost of growing an acre of beets was found to be 

 about twice as much as an acre of corn, and about twice as much 

 dry matter was obtained from an acre of corn as from the same 

 area of mangels or sugar beets. 



