ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 69 



the milk pail; the cows would shrink in their milk imme- 

 diately. 



Mr. Gurler: Did you find by the addition of more ground 

 feed or other feed that you could make up that loss? 



Mr. Footh: Yes. My experience with ensilage is this: 

 I don't consider a stalk as really fit to put in the silo until it 

 has developed the suckers. If you could keep the suckers out, 

 you would gain, I believe. My experience is that a bushel of 

 seed to five acres will give me the best result, not only for 

 yield, but for quality. I planted not over a bushel to five 

 acres this last year and my ensilage went about nineteen 

 tons to the acre. My silo holds between 1,900 and 2,000 tons, 

 and I filled it with fifty acres. I plant both the Red Top and 

 the B. and W. The B. and W. does not mature early 

 enough to give us a chance to go to work as early as we 

 ought to. I filled my silo last fall with one extra man. We 

 commenced on the Red Top on the 20th of August. I believe 

 that the gentleman is right who said that the acids would 

 eat the iron silo. My silo is round, made of two thicknesses 

 of boards, with oil paper between, and after the third year I 

 found it was commencing to decay a little, and I plastered it 

 with a common scratch coat and then faced it with Portland 

 cement, and it stood over three years, and is there now, the 

 cement is all right where the boys haven't stuck the pitchfork 

 into it, and I don't believe it will rot. Mr. Oatman built one 

 last year in the same way, I think. 



Mr. Wyman: I want to ask Prof. Haecker a question in 

 regard to the value of clover. How much did you say it was 

 worth in the production of milk? 



Prof. Haecker: About |17. 



Mr. Wyman: And corn stover was |4.00. Now, that 

 being the case, wouldn't it be a good deal cheaper, and 

 wouldn't there a good deal more money made in raising clover 

 to feed cows at that price, or comparatively that, than there 

 would be in raising corn stover or in raising corn and putting 

 it into the silo? 



The Chairman: You get twenty tons of corn to the acre 

 and about two and a half tons of hay. 



Mr. Wyman: Even then you have got more money count- 

 ing by the acre. 

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