[LLINdS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



A Delegate: — I have used a tube a number of times, and 

 lost a teat every time. 



Mr. Cobb: — It was through infection from the tube, no 

 doubt. I have been in barns where they have used a milking 

 tube on account of some soreness of the teat and that tube was 

 taken from the teat and put up in a box, and may be it would be 

 six weeks or two months before it was used again, and ma\ be 

 it was borrowed by a neighbor, and it was not even washed. 

 And it would of course aggravate a case, instead of helping it. 



We have heard a great deal about feeding, and you all 

 know that I am a silo crank. I think there is no feed on a farm, 

 in Illinois especially, as cheap as our corn crop. When we ride 

 over this state, and do not see a single field of corn all cut and 

 put into the silo, it seems as though we ought to give special 

 attention to this matter, which is of such great importance. 

 Bulletin 155 of the Ohio station is right along this line. It 

 is an experiment conducted there this last year, to see how 

 much of the dry matter of the cow's daily ration could be gotten 

 out of the silo and cheap forage, and the results have been very 

 marked in that direction. Prof. Haecker cautioned about jump- 

 ing at conclusions. That is a good thing. We have jumped 

 at a good many conclusions, and have been in error. The live 

 months' experiment of this Ohio station shows that eighty-two 

 per cent of the cow's daily ration was taken from the silo and 

 the hay mow. They only fed six pounds of clover hay, and 

 four pounds of grain, and the balance was ensilage. The ensi- 

 lage cattle produced milk at 68 cents a hundred, and butter at 

 13 cents a pound; and the grain cattle that gut fifty to sixty 

 per cent of their feed from grain, gave milk that cost a dollar 

 a hundred, and the butter cost 22 cents a pound, and a month's 

 feed over five dollars. The silage fed cows were fed at a cost 

 of $2.50 per month. If we can draw conclusions from a live 

 months' test, that looks to me as though the farmers of this 

 country should pay more attention to the great waste of the 

 corn fields of this state. 



