24 BULLETix 1045, u. s. depaetme:n^t of agriculture. 



Micliigan, and Washington agricultural experiment stations, at the 

 United States Department of Agriculture field stations at Huntley, 

 Mont., and Scottsbluff. Xebr., and at the Manitoba Agricultural Col- 

 lege. The conclusions arrived at by the experimenters differ mark- 

 edly. It is impossible to determine from available data just Tvhy 

 the sunflower silage was palatable in one case and not in another. 

 There are a sufficient number of failures, howe^'^r, to indicate that 

 more care and judgment are necessary to make good sunflower silage 

 than to make good corn silage. 



At the West Virginia (-i) station the cows fed on a sunflower- 

 silage ration produced per cow a daily average of 27.93 pounds of 

 milk and 1.05 pounds of butter fat. while those fed corn silage pro- 

 duced an average per cow of 29.17 pounds of milk and 1.05 pounds of 

 butter fat daih\ In this test the milk produced by the cows fed 

 sunflower silage averaged 3.74 per cent of butter fat and that pro- 

 duced from the corn-silage ration 3.60 per cent. At the Washington 

 station {20) the cows ate more silage and less grain during the 

 periods when given corn silage than while they were being fed sun- 

 flower silage. During the sunflower-silage periods the cows pro- 

 duced more milk but lost a few pounds in weight. While fed corn 

 silage there was an appreciable gain in weight. The authors of the 

 report conclude that sunflower silage in this test was approximately 

 92 per cent as valuable as corn silage. At the Manitoba Agricul- 

 tural College (i) a feeding trial was carried on with seven cows 

 from December 19, 1919. to April 1. 1920, the conclusion being that 

 the cows maintained their milk flow and boch' weight fully as well 

 on the sunflower silage as on the corn-silage ration. 



The Pennsylvania station ® conducted a feeding test with sunflower 

 silage in the winter of 1919-20 and with silage one-half sunflowers 

 and one-half corn in the winter of 1920-21. In each case the stand- 

 ard of comparison was a good quality of com silage. In the first 

 test the cows while fed sunflower silage averaged 19.3 pounds of 

 milk and 0.92 pound of butter fat j)er cow daily; while they were 

 fed corn silage the average production per cow was 22.2 pounds of 

 milk and 0.98 pound of butter fat daily. When the cows ' were 

 changed from corn silage to sunflower silage there was a decrease 

 of 23.5 per cent in the milk and 18.5 per cent in the butter fat pro- 

 duced. TVhen the cows were changed from sunflower silage to corn 

 silage there was an actual increase of 2.3 per cent in the milk pro- 

 duced, notwithstanding an advance of six weeks in the lactation 



s This pre-liminary statement of results obtained with sunflower silage by the Pennsyl- 

 vania station in 1019 and 1920 was supplied by S. I. Bechdel, professor of dairy hus- 

 bandry at the Pennsylvania State Collesre. A complete report on the sunflower-silage 

 feeding experiments will be published by the Pennsylvania Agricultural Experiment 

 StatioLi. 



