144 How THE FAKM PAYS. 



ENSILAGE COMPARED WITH ROOTS. 



Let it be admitted that forty tons of green fodder can be produced. 

 Then, to be fair, let us admit that forty tons of mangels per acre can 

 be grown with equal ease and at no more cost, when put in the pits, 

 than that of the fodder preserved in the silo. Then we are ready to 

 compare the actual value of these two crops for feeding to dairy cows. 

 The following figures are taken from the report of the Connecticut 

 Experiment Station, and will be found to be authentic: 



COMPOSITION OF 



FODDEB CORN. MANGELS. SUGAR BEETS. 



Water 85.70 88.0 81.5 



Ash 1.23 0.8 0.7 



Albuminoids 1.20 1.1 1.0 



Crude Fibre 4.95 0.9 1.3 



Carbohydrates 6.73 9.1 15.4 



Fat 0.18 0.1 0.1 



The advantage is twenty-five per cent, in favor of the mangels, 

 and in favor of the sugar beets nearly 100 per cent., as regards 

 nutritive value. A butter maker, whose business depends on the 

 quality of his product, will hesitate to use sour or alcoholic fodder in 

 a condition of decomposition, when he can use. perfectly fresh and 

 well flavored food, such as mangels or beets. It may be objected 

 that the crop of forty tons of roots is extravagant; but it is not, either 

 as regards mangels or Lane's Sugar Beet. By planting in rows thirty 

 inches apart, and eighteen inches in the rows, roots of eight pounds 

 each can be grown with ease. I have had them to weigh fourteen to 

 twenty-four pounds each, and have grown fodder corn at the rate of 

 sixty tons to the acre, and know that neither of these large crops can 

 be grown without high fertilizing, and that it is as easy to grow roots 

 as corn, and as easy to harvest the one as the other. Roots of eight 

 pounds each, eighteen inches apart, will yield forty-six tons per acre, 

 and, with the advantage in point of nutritive value, will be equal to 

 about sixty tons of corn fodder, which not one in a hundred will 

 reach as easily as one in ten will reach forty-six tons of mangels. 

 Now it seems to me that it is a useful thing to point out these facts, 

 when there is danger of many persons' heads being turned in regard 



