THIRTY-SEVENTH ANNUAL CONVENTION. 123 



3. Provides a succulent and uniform food for the entire 

 year. 



4. Stimulates the milk flow. 



Silage contains about 75 per cent moisture anl for this rea- 

 son the economy in storing has been questioned. Let us figure 

 on this proposition. It requires 400 cubic feet to store one ton 

 of hay and 50 cubic fee, just one-eighth as much, to store a ton 

 of silage. Therefore, eight tons of silage can be stored in the 

 same space required for one ton of hay. One ton of hay con- 

 tains 1,700 pounds of dry matter, while eight tons of silage con- 

 tains 4,000 pounds of dry matter, more than twice as much. 



Again one ton of clover hay contains about 1,000 pounds 

 of digestible feeding nutriments. Eight tons of silage, which 

 can be stored in the same space, contains 2,000 pounds, just twice 

 as much. Thus we find that the space required to store one ton 

 of hay will store eight tons of silage containing two and a half 

 times as much dry matter and twice as much digestible feeding 

 nutriments. Now which would be the cheapest, to build a hun- 

 dred ton silo or a barn to store 800 tons of hay ? 



The dairyman who feeds the ear of corn only, loses about 40 

 per cent of his corn crop, and he who feeds the ear and the dry 

 stalk loses much, but he who stores his corn crop in the silo at 

 the proper stage of maturity gets about all there is in the corn 

 plant. 



The 1910 corn crop in Illinois is estimated at 300,000,000 

 bushels. At least one-third of this is used for milk production. 

 One hundred million bushels at forty cents would amount to 

 $40,000,000. If all of this corn was put in the silo it would add 

 forty per cent in the value or $16,000,000 more. 



There is in Illinois something over 2,000,000 dairy cows. 

 Dividing these up into herds of twenty cows each making 100,- 

 000 herds, the $16,000,000 saved from one year's crop of corn 

 by the use of the silo, is enough to build a silo for every herd in 

 the state. 



Nor is this all ; silage induces a larger milk flow than the 

 feed. A number of tests have been made showing that the feed- 



