SILAGE AND FIELD BEETS. 



85 



755.5 Ibs. silage during two months, does not show that the 

 cows experimented on were highly pleased with the rations 

 furnished. It may be noticed that all the beets offered were 

 eaten, and only 32.5 Ibs. hay were refused. If towards the end 

 of Period II slight changes had been made in the regime, we 

 are convinced that all the hay in series B would have been eaten. 



The fat estimation in milk does not show that there was any 

 special advantage of silage over beets. 



From the following table we conclude, that during two 

 months the silage gave 707 Ibs. milk, while beets during the 

 same period gave 932 Ibs. , or a difference of 225 Ibs. milk in 

 favor of beets. The gain in weight with silage, as compared 

 with beets, can be of no possible moment, as it is not unusual 

 to find important differences during an interval of 24 hours. 



TOTAL MILK PRODUCED, AND GAIN AND Loss IN WEIGHT. 



It is to be regretted that a portion of the beets was lost dur- 

 ing warm weather, and that the roots used in the second series 

 of experiments were large and coarse, containing but 11.69 per 

 cent, dry matter. The inferiority of such roots becomes evi- 

 dent when it is known that superior beets contain 24 per cent, 

 dry matter. Roots such as used by the Ohio station were very 

 little superior to ordinary mangels. Under these circumstances, 

 in order to feed beets so that total dry matter should be equal 

 to that contained in silage ration, the weight of beets fed 

 reached 60 Ibs. per diem. To the rations in each case six 

 pounds of bran were added, with good clover hay fed ad libitum. 



These experiments showed that 14 Ibs. of hay per diem were 



