234 Feeds and Feeding. 



363. Silage as a feeding stuff .— Silage is preeminently a feed lot 

 the dairy cow. (654-9) In almost equal degree it is a necessity with 

 breeding cattle, growing stock, and young animals, which would other- 

 wise be wintered exclusively on dry forage. Given to breeding and 

 growing stock, silage tends to keep the bowels normal, the body tis- 

 sues sappy, the skin pliant, and the coat glossy, all of which mark 

 the animals as in condition to make the most from their feed. This is 

 also true of fattening cattle. At the Utah Station^ Sanborn found 

 that the flesh of steers fed silage contained 6 per ct. and that of sheep 

 2 per ct, more water than the flesh of others fed dry forage. If 

 cattle are at their best on summer pastures, then winter conditions 

 which most nearly approach those of summer are to be desired. Those 

 interested in pure-bred beef cattle and in beef production who do not 

 use roots for their stock in winter should take lessons from dairymen 

 who feed silage. (559-564) Silage can be advantageously fed in mod- 

 eration to breeding ewes, especially after they have yeaned, and to 

 fattening sheep and lambs. (757-8) It may also be used in a limited 

 way with idle horses and those not hard worked in winter, especially 

 brood mares and growing animals. (443) The high fiber content of 

 corn silage plainly indicates that it cannot be successfully used to 

 any extent in swine feeding. (904) 



364. The position of silage on the stock farm. — The silo and its 

 products are now fixed factors of vast importance in American agri- 

 culture. Old-style farming, where corn is planted for the grain only, 

 the forage being wasted, and where straw stacks slowly rotting in the 

 barnyard show that grain production dominates, has no place for the 

 silo. There should be no thought of the silo on such farms until the 

 present wastage is properly conserved and more mouths are waiting 

 for feed than the system of farming in vogue will support. On too 

 many farms stock cattle barely hold their own during winter. This 

 means that for half of each year all the feed consumed goes for body 

 maintenance, returning nothing to the owner, and serving only to 

 carry the animals over winter and to pasture time, when they once 

 more begin to gain in weight and thereby really increase in value. 

 By the use of corn silage, combined with other cheap roughages, 

 young cattle can be made to gain steadily all winter at small cost, so 

 that with the coming of spring they will not only have increased in 

 weight but are in condition to go on pasture and make the largest 

 possible gains. 



' Bui. 8. 



