1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 131 



Then in regard to ensilage. It all depends on the quality 

 of the ensilage. It is beyond question that sour, ill-smelling 

 ensilage, fed to excess, injures the milk product ; but there 

 is no doubt that sweet ensilage improves rather than injures 

 the butter. 



Then in regard to cotton-seed meal. Perhaps somebody 

 will ask, " Do you feed cotton-seed meal?" Most certainly 

 I do. " Does it not injure your product? " Certainly not. 

 It is a very highly concentrated food, and if I should feed my 

 cows heavily with it, it would injure their digestive organs. 

 So it is with a great many other things. There are so many 

 conditions that it will not do to lay down any arbitrary rule 

 for dairymen. We must look over all our conditions, and 

 make rules carefully and considerately, and then be guided 

 by them. 



Mr. Lord of Otter River. I am not going to controvert 

 the essayist at all, for I think he has given us an excellent 

 essay ; but I want to say some things which he did not say. 

 I will speak first about watering stock. I am not sure, for 

 I never tried it, that a cow will drink three pails of water in 

 a day ; but if she will, would it not be better that she should 

 drink it at three different times during the day instead of 

 drinking too much at a time ? I am not going to say whether 

 that is so or not ; I simply make the suggestion because it 

 has not been brought up. 



There is one thing I want to say about ensilage. I have 

 heard it said that by analysis five tons of ensilage were equal 

 to one ton of good English hay ; but by experiments in feed- 

 ing it has been shown that three tons are equal to one ton of 

 good hay. Now, we need to look into that a little and get 

 some facts. Ensilage is sour, it is an acid, and natural 

 science teaches us that acid in the stomach w^ill change starch 

 into sugar so that it will be digestible, and if there is not too 

 much acid in a substance we do not taste it, and of course it 

 is of no account. Then, where people feed ensflage they 

 feed a great deal of meal, and all our grains, if I am right, 

 contain about fifty per cent of their weight of starch ; and if 

 there is not acid enough in the stomach, then this acid in the 

 ensilage which the cow eats helps her to digest the meal. 

 So it will be with apple pomace. 



