STATE DAIKY ASSOCIATION. 557 



Mr. Connor: I understand you have begun growing alfalfa. I want 

 an expression of your judgment on the value of alfalfa to balance with 

 silage from an economic point of view. How can you make a balanced 

 ration with silage in the point of economy? 



Mr. Gurler: I will try to reach that point through somebody else's ex- 

 perience. I never fed any to amount to anything myself. Last October 

 I was up to Mr. Dixon's, and he showed me over 130 tons of alfalfa that 

 was grown on seventeen acres. He told me by feeding alfalfa hay with 

 corn silage he had been able to cut his ground feed bill right in the middle, 

 and keep his cows up to the limit. 



Mr. Woods: What was that alfalfa worth a ton? 



Mr. Gurler: It is not in the market. I have twelve acres on the farm 

 now, and I am going to put out forty next summer. I am loaded up with 

 more enthusiasm now for alfalfa than I have been for any crop on my 

 farm. The work that has been done over in Illinois of inoculating the soil 

 with bacteria that draws the nitrogen from the atmosphere, and if you 

 will write to Champaign and tell them that you want their alfalfa books, 

 this will give you an account of tlie experiments; but it seems tliat there 

 is a special bacteria for the clover. About a year ago now there was a 

 representative of our Experiment Station told me he did not believe we 

 would make a success of growing alfalfa in Illinois, but now they im- 

 ported from Kansas and Nebraska som6 soil from the alfalfa tields, and 

 he inoculated the field with that breed of bacteria, and they grew eight 

 tons and a half to the acre last year down there. 



Mr. Young: Do you feed ground feed with bran and silage? 



Mr. Gurler: Well, you could probably feed enougli bran with silage 

 to make it a pretty fairly balanced ration, but you could buy your nitrog- 

 enous or protein much cheaper than you can bran. 



Mr. Young: Would it be cheaper to sell the wheat and buy the meal? 



Mr. Gurler: Well, that is a new proposition. 



Mr. Wood: What is your opinion of the soy-beau? 



Mr. Gurler: I have grown a few of them for two years, but I don't 

 know very much about theuj'. I can't lielp you along this line. This 

 paper that was read here, what was the statement he made about putting 

 it in the silo or shredding it? 



The Secretary: He made the statement that he could put the corn in 

 the silo cheaper than he could shred it, and called attention to the fact 

 that he had a shredder on his farm two niontlis, and had never been 

 able to use it but one day on account of the weather. 



