36 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION 



on their own farms an abundance of hay legumes, corn 

 silage and farm grain, corn and oats or barley and oats, 

 they would make themselves independent of the feed 

 manufacturers. 



For feeding cows in an official test, most certainly I 

 would advise a different sort of ration, but if the dairy 

 farmers of the United States would make the attempt to 

 raise a good home grown ration largely, and balance it by 

 the use of liberal amounts of legume hay, they would 

 greatly increase their profits. At the present time for the 

 real efficient dairyman I would recommend, even with al- 

 falfa hay, corn silage and corn grain, the use of a small 

 amount of high protein concentrates. 



Mr. Glover mentioned the difficulties he has when a 

 farmer writes in asking him to balance rations for him. 

 Nothing makes me feel much worse than when a dairyman 

 writes in and asks us to make an efficient ration for him 

 and he tells us he used timothy and maybe corn silage for 

 his roughage. We cannot make an efficient ration that will 

 produce milk efficiently or abundantly on that sort of a 

 roughage combination, and you men all know it. 



One of the difficulties in talking to this kind of an 

 audience is that the fellows that need these lectures are 

 not here. The only advantage is that you can take some 

 of the things they should know back to some of your neigh- 

 bors, and when they ask questions you can give them a lit- 

 tle advice, because the very men who need these facts with 

 reference to increased efficiency usually do not come out to 

 meetings such as this; and that is a fact college men recog- 

 nize very fully. 



So much for the old idea of balanced rations. If any 

 of you want to know what sort of feeds to use, write to 

 your agricultural college, to such men as Professor Fraser, 

 men like that. Get in touch with your county agent, and 

 Ihose men will tell you what sort of rations to use. As Mr. 

 Glover has pointed out, he balances several thousands of 

 rations for cows per year. So in 1926 there is no excuse 

 for any farmer failing to feed his stock efficiently. 



Lot us take up now some of these more recent discov- 



