60 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



I might say a few words about the stage of maturity. 

 I find that I get the best results to let the corn mature to 

 the point that the kernels are nicely dented, and perhaps 

 the very earliest of them are beginning to glaze a little. I 

 think that if we cut any earlier than that, we fail to get the 

 most of the nutriment from the corn, and if we grow much 

 past that point the corn will not all be digested by the stock 

 that consume it. This point comes up right here. It perhaps 

 is not safe to be governed entirely by the chemical analysis 

 on this point. It is a question in my mind whether corn has 

 its greatest value at the time that the chemist will find the 

 greatest amount of nutrition. T think that the cow should 

 be taken into consideration and we will learn at what period 

 we can get the best results from it. The question of palpa- 

 bility enters in here, and that is one of the vital questions all 

 along this feeding line. T think any of us who have done 

 fiiiy thinking must have discovered that the food must be pal- 

 atable to get the best results from it; if it is not, they will 

 not (consume enough. Even Prof. Haecker, if he had given 

 that food and they didn't like it and would not consume it, 

 could not got his profit out of them. 



There are som.e other points where we have stumbled 

 with the silo. Many have built their silos or their compart- 

 ments so large that they were not able to feed down fast 

 enough to keep ahead of decay, or they have been careless 

 in cutting off the surface, cutting it unevenly, they have not 

 gone all over the surface with regularity, so that they have 

 kept the surface fresh. I think a safe rule is to have your 

 silos built so that you have not over six surface square feet 

 per animal to be fed. For instance, if you have a silo 10x12 

 feet, that would be 120 feet surface; six goes into 120 twenty 

 times, so that would be all right for twenty cows. You must 

 feed down fast enough to keep ahead of decay, and the ex- 

 treme limit should be eight surface square feet per cow. If 

 we get beyond that there is liable to be trouble from decay 

 commencing. 



I am satisfied that the greatest objection to ensilage has 

 come from a lack of intelligence in putting it up and in feed- 

 ing from it. I remember one time I found trouble with the 

 cream at one of mv creameries. I run the thing down and 



