,5,52 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



.summer soiling crop for the cows two weeks before the flies come, which 

 •enables the dairymen to forestall the effects of thoss ravaging pests, 

 which destroy the profits of the summer milk producer. One of the great- 

 est absurdities, if not the greatest, is not providing for the eixtra energy 

 .a cow must expend in fighting files after the middle of July in every state. 

 Certainly no careful observer will deny that our herds standi bunched so 

 •compactly together three or four hours every day kicking and fighting 

 the scorpian sting of their terribl e tormentors without eating a mouthful 

 of grass and finally becoming so hungry that they are compelled to wander 

 out into the pasture in search of food, and for every bite of grass gather- 

 ed, more energy is expended in the stamping of the feet and violent toss- 

 ing of the head from side to side than the grass supplies, and it is not 

 strange that in two short months after July 15th, the milk sheets in all 

 our creameries record a shrinkage of 50 per cent in the amount of milk 

 received v/hich might have been avoided by expending one hour per day 

 gathering a green cropland putting it into the mangers for a herd of 

 'twenty cows If any. Illinois farmer has land poor enough on which he 

 .can sow oats and peas (and not have them lodge) at intervals three weeks 

 apart, an acre will sustain a herd of twenty cows twenty days, giving them 

 .forty pounds each per day, provi ded eight tons of the green feed can be 

 produced per acre, which is a conservative estimate. The writer has 

 grown twelve to-ns in Minnesota, They should be sowed four inches deep 

 In light soil, and half as deep or less on heavy clay soil, mixed, two 

 bushels of the Canada-field pea to one bushel of oatsi This is the greatest 

 imilk prodlucing food I have ever fed for a summer soiling crop. 



The first sowing with us in Minnesota is about the 10th of April, 

 which gives us the first cutting July 1st, and the second sowing is needed 

 two or three weeks later, which will furnish the cows from the manager 

 with food to supply the extra energy wasted in fighting flies and the 

 shrinkage ini milk will be very slight. Following the peas a succulent 

 crop of corn may be provided by successive plantings until the time for 

 filling the silo or adopting other and less profitable methods of winter 

 ieeding. 



