122 FARM ANIMALS 



what unpalatable was found to be inferior to 

 sorghum. This test, however, was not fair to 

 the corn stover since thirty-seven per cent, of it 

 remained uneaten. In Illinois it has been found 

 that eighty per cent, of the beef raisers pasture 

 corn stalks in the field or cut part of them for 

 shocked corn and pasture the remainder. It is an 

 astonishing fact that a considerable portion of the 

 corn fodder found in the corn belt where fine 

 steers are raised, is plowed under or burned. Its 

 feeding value is much too high to be treated in 

 this manner. When corn stover is compared 

 with silage for both summer and winter feeding, 

 it is found that shock corn produces slightly better 

 gains than silage. The difference, however, is not 

 of great consequence. As a rule corn silage is 

 not fed extensively to steers. From statistics 

 collected in Illinois, it appears that only eight 

 feeders to whom circulars were sent mentioned 

 the use of silage for feeding steers. It is, of 

 course, fed throughout the same part of the country 

 much more extensively and regularly to dairy cows. 

 Some feeders, however, have obtained very satis- 

 factory results in feeding silage. Steers take a 

 fine market finish and show a good condition of 

 health during all of the feeding period. A study 

 of the relative profits from silage and shock corn 

 in Illinois indicated that it required nearly twice 

 as great an expenditure of labor and capital in 

 harvesting and feeding silage as in feeding shock 

 corn. During these same investigations, silage- 

 fed steers appeared more thrifty and were in a 

 better finish at the end of the test than were the 

 steers which received shock corn. The amount 

 of silage fed in these experiments ranged from 

 fifteen to thirty pounds per head. 



