170 HOW TO FEED SILAGE. 



York in competition with butter made from dry food, and 

 it proved to be the finer butter of the two. The first 

 winter I had samples sent down to my family in De 

 Kalb from the stable where we fed silage and from the 

 stable where we were making the certified milk for Chi- 

 cago, and in which we fed no silage. I presume I made 

 one hundred comparative tests that winter of the milk 

 from these two stables. My wife and daughter could 

 not tell the difference between the two samples. In the 

 large majority of cases they would select the milk from 

 the cows fed silage as the sweeter milk." 



It will serve as an illustration of the general use of 

 silage among progressive dairymen in our country, to 

 state that of one hundred farmers furnishing the feed 

 rations fed to their dairy cows, in an investigation of this 

 subject conducted by Prof. Woll in 1894, sixty-four were 

 feeding silage to their stock, this feed being used a 

 larger number of times than any other single cattle food, 

 wheat bran only excepted. 



An interesting experiment as to the effect of silage 

 on milk was recently conducted, by the Illinois Station, 

 where a herd of 40 cows was divided, one lot being fed 

 40 Ibs. of silage a day, the other clover hay and grain. 

 Samples of milk were submitted to 372 persons for an 

 opinion. Sixty per cent, preferred the silage-fed milk, 29 

 per cent, non-silage-fed milk, while 11 per cent, had no 

 choice. They were able to distinguish between the two 

 kinds, but found nothing objectionable about either. The 

 summary of the test was that when silage imparts a bad 

 or disagreeable flavor to milk produced from it, almost 

 invariably the cause is that the silage has not been fed 

 properly, or that spoiled silage has been used. 



It has been contended that the acetic acid in ensilage 

 has a tendency to make milk sour more quickly. A user 

 of ensilage for 14 years, took a gallon of milk from a cow 

 fed ensilage for 42 days and a gallon from another that 

 had received no ensilage and set them side by side in a 

 room having a temperature of 40 degrees. Both gallons 

 of milk began to sour at the same time. 



