102 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN* S ASSOCIATION. 



last June. We were milking 16 cows. The cows 

 were on good pasture and Ave were feeding them one 

 bushel of ensilage per day, as Ave always feed some- 

 thing with pasture. When the ensilage was all fed 

 out we Avent to cutting green clover for them and the 

 result Avas that in three days their milk yield w r as 

 decreased one hundred pounds per day, and in six 

 days one hundred and fifty per day, and up to the 

 time Ave stopped feeding ensilage they showed no 

 signs of shrinking in their milk, which proved to me 

 that ensilage was an excellent food, even in summer 

 and in Avinter. I can not say enough in its favor. 

 Some people say that roots will ansAver the same pur- 

 pose, but I can not agree Avith them, as I have had 

 experience Avith both. 



I have groAvn sugar beets more or less for the past 

 eighteen years, and I find that the labor required to 

 grow the corn and fill the silo can not be compared to 

 the expense and labor of groAving a crop of roots, and 

 the result from feeding is altogether in favor of the 

 ensilage. 



I have grown some beets this past season and have 

 been feeding them to the cows previous to opening 

 the silo. October was favorable for the production of 

 milk, the weather \vas fine and the cows fresh, and I 

 Avas feeding them shocked corn, 1 pint of oil meal and 

 from four to six quarts of middlings Avith the beets and 

 what clover hay they Avould eat. Since opening the 

 silo, we have fed no hay, have cut down the other 

 grain, Avith the exception of oil meal, of which we have 

 added one pint, and the coavs have gained in their milk 

 from two to three pounds each per day. You Avould 

 naturally suppose that there was corn in the ensilage, 

 but that is not the case. It is the large ensilage corn, 

 drilled at the rate of nearly one peck to the acre. 



