BxjREAu OF Ageicultuee. 185 



vent of tlie silo has already resulted in an increased num- 

 ber of beef cattle being fed in this State each year. In 

 a test made at this Station in fattening steers with and 

 without the addition of silage to the ration, the cost of 

 gains was lessened $1.68 per hundredweight when com 

 silage was used. The feeding of two-year-old steers dur- 

 ing the winter months on rations with and without corn 

 silage, with a view to finishing on pasture without grain, 

 Tesulted ia $3.59 less cost per hundredweight of gain the 

 first trial, and $4.43 less cost per hundredweight of gain 

 the second trial, where rations containing com silage 

 were used. In the first test the steers receiving silage 

 in their ration during the winter months did not gain 

 within twenty pounds per head as much on pasture as 

 steers making the same gains during the winter months 

 with a ration containing no silage. In the second test 

 of this kind the following year, the steers which received 

 silage during the winter months made 48 pounds more 

 gain on pasture the following spring and summer than 

 those which did not receive silage during the previous 

 winter. These tests were conducted to throw some light on 

 the prevalent opinion that steers do not gain well on 

 pasture after having had silage the previous winter. 

 The average of these tests would indicate that this sur- 

 mise is not founded on sufficient evidence, and that cat- 

 tle can be wintered much cheaper where silage is used 

 than where it is omitted. 



The richest agricultural country in the United 

 States, namely, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania, feeds 

 annually some seventy thousand steers mainly for ma- 

 nure. These cattle are fed in bams kept heavily bedded 

 so that all the solid and liquid manure is conserved. 

 The Kentucky farmer needs to learn the lesson of con- 

 serving the manure produced in his beef cattle feeding 

 operations conducted during the winter months. This 

 is accomplished at the Experiment Station by adopting 

 the covered barnyard at one of the bams and by con- 

 crete lots at another bam. Eecords of manure made 

 per steer during the winter feeding period have been 

 kept, and as much as 5.32 tons of manure per steer have 

 been produced in a 160 day feeding period. According 

 to experiments at the Ohio Experiment Station, a single 



