FIFTY-SECOND ANNUAL CONVENTION 35 



they will eat twice a day with all the corn silage they will 

 eat twice a day, and just some grown grain, corn, barley, 

 or oats, cows producing even thirty or forty pounds of milk 

 a day can be maintained in protein balance. They are not 

 losing protein or nitrogen from their bodies. 



We carried on experiments with our pure-bred cows 

 in the regular dairy herd during two different winters, we 

 fed one group of cows nothing but alfalfa hay, corn silage 

 and a mixture of half oats and corn, ground of course. 

 The other ration we fed to another group of cows, con- 

 sisting of the same feeds, except we substituted three- 

 quarters of a pound of linseed meal and three-quarters of 

 a pound of cottonseed meal for the same weights of corn 

 and oats. Most of us would guess that the cows getting 

 the linseed and cottonseed meal in addition to this home- 

 grown ration of alfalfa and corn silage would produce 

 somewhat more milk or butter fat. To our surprise in 

 neither experiment did they. Throughout the winter the 

 production was just as good on the home grown ration, 

 though these were pure-bred cows producing at least one 

 pound of butter fat a day. 



When we figured up the results we found that this 

 home grown ration had supplied a pretty well balanced 

 ration. The nutritive ration of this ration was one year 

 about one to 6.9. That means one pound of digestible 

 gluten protein to 6.a9 pounds of other matters. That is a 

 gluten protein to 6.9 pounds of other matters. That is a 

 mend for feeding year in and year out to good pure-bred 

 cows or high grade cows, a diet with quite as low an 

 allowance of protein as that. I am not quite sure whether 

 the effect over a long period of time would be as good as 

 if a little more protein was supplied. In other words I 

 believe a good dairy cow, a highly efficient cow, is enti- 

 tled to the benefit of the doubt. I do know that if the Wis- 

 consin and Illinois and Indiana farmers were feeding that 

 sort of a home grown ration this winter they would be 

 making a tremendously larger net revenue from their 

 farms. Right away that means they would not have to 

 worry about the price of feeds. If they were producing 



