FIFTY-FIRST ANNUAL CONVENTION 113 



milk per acre without materially increasing the cost for 

 feed. Corn yields the highest amount of carbohydrates and 

 total nutrients, leaving protein as the most necessary ele- 

 ment for a companion crop to supply. The alfalfa hay 

 from an acre contains nearly three times the total feed and 

 nine times as much protein as an acre of timothy. In addi- 

 tion, alfalfa is more palatable than timothy and also keeps 

 the cow's system in much better physical tone. 



Reduce or Eliminate the Poorer Crops. 



Timothy hay is not to be considered at all as a dairy 

 crop — ^not a whit more than a cow that produces only sev- 

 enty-five or eighty pounds of fat in a year. And yet at the 

 time this demonstration was started, timothy hay was grown 

 to feed dairy cows on a great many farms, and it is still used 

 for that purpose. 



Bluegrass pasture makes a still poorer showing of total 

 nutrients though it has some special advantages of its own 

 as it saves labor and is good for the cows. Oats are so low 

 in feed value per acre that the amount raised should be re- 

 duced to a minimum. And an acre of clover hay, while ex- 

 cellent in quality, is greatly lacking in quantity, having only 

 half the total feed value and only a third of the protein pro- 

 duced by an acre of alfalfa. 



The Damon and Pythias of Dairydom. 



Corn and alfalfa are inseparable dairy feeds. Protein 

 is the highest priced constituent in dairy feed when bought 

 in the commercial market, and the paramount advantage of 

 alfalfa is that it is high in protein and thus a balancing feed, 

 no less than in its remarkable yield. On these two great 

 counts, most protein and greatest total yield of nutrients 

 per acre, alfalfa is the premier companion crop of corn, 

 doubling or twice doubling the feed value of any other farm 

 crop. 



These differences in production were never dreamed of, 

 were in fact incredible until comparisons were made in feed- 

 ing tests. The cows like all these feeds and there is good 



