58 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



proved that it was not the quantity that. we wanted; and 

 the discussion here has proved that it is not quantity but 

 quality that you want. The worst weed to-day is the corn 

 weed. There is no weed that is profitable at all. Now, we 

 cut about twelve tons per acre, and when we analyzed it, 

 and used a ton of timothy hay as the standard, we had forty- 

 seven dollars' worth of cattle feed on an acre. 



Mr. CusHMAN. Then the inference would be that next 

 year, if you get but one ton, the rule would still hold 

 good, — that you would have forty-seven dollars' worth of 

 ensilao^e. What we farmers want is to o-et at somethino- 

 tangible. There has been a great deal said about the value 

 of ensilage as compared with English hay. Now, the pro- 

 fessor takes one ton of timothy, calls it worth ten dollars, 

 and compares that with an acre of ensilage. I do not know 

 but that the professor is right, I presume he is ; but we 

 farmers are a little obtuse, and we cannot exactly see the 

 point that one ton of ensilage is worth as much as ten tons 

 of hay. We want something in this ensilage business that 

 is tangible. 



Professor Roberts. My dear sir, I have not said an}^- 

 thing that implied that. 1 appeal to this audience if I have. 

 I said the amount, if it was worth the money, did not mat- 

 ter. One man down in New York State says, " I have cut 

 seventy-five tons of ensilage to the acre." I say to him, 

 "It is not worth much to put into the silo." That man 

 says, " I am going to raise one hundred tons next year, if I 

 can." He has never raised it. Now, I said to that man, 

 " It is real food that the animal can eat and digest that you 

 want, not bulk, not water, not wood ; you are raising wood 

 in the form of a corn-stalk, and you are raising mud instead 

 of albumen, and that is not the best way." I say that when 

 you sow timothy and cut from two to three tons to the acre 

 you usually have a crop of far less feeding value than when 

 you plant corn as I do, get lots of ears on it, and cut twelve 

 or fourteen tons to the acre. That is what I mean. 



Mr. Sargent. I think that is riiiht. 



'O' 



Adjourned until two o'clock. 



