Il6 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



ing quite satisfied with this we weighed again the next day and 

 had 825^ pounds; a decrease of not more than 2 pounds per 

 cow during two of the coldest months Illinois ever saw. 



We heard one of said patrons say, while chopping fodder 

 out of ice and snow with an axe: " I wish I had your silo dur- 

 in this weather." Another said: "I have to keep my boys 

 out of school nearly every pleasant day to haul feed." En- 

 couraging for the boys! Do you blame them for wanting to 

 leave the farm and get a comfortable position in an office or 

 store? Ensilage is the boy's friend, and no man who has ever 

 had the benefit of a good silo will willingly do without it. 



J. Y. Sawyer, Jr., Godfrey, 111. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Warne: "Did you see the corn stalk thirty feet high?" 



Mr. Sawyer: "I saw corn at the Centennial from Kansas, 

 and the statistics say that corn was there which measured thirty 

 feet long." 



Mr. Wilbur: "I would like to ask what is the difference in 

 value of an acre of corn put up as we ordinarily put it up in the 

 dry shock and cured, and that put up by ensilage?" 



Mr. Sawyer: "I cannot give you any figures. I can give 

 you the difference between hay and ensilage as I give it here. 

 Nine hundred pounds of ensilage is equal — and I think any man 

 here that has ever fed ensilage will say he prefers it — to the best 

 ton of hay he ever saw. A ton of hay is 1,800 pounds solid 

 matter. Three tons of ensilage has but 900 pounds of solid 

 matter. That looks like a good deal of difference, but look 

 again: That hay as it goes into the cow's stomach must be thor- 

 oughly masticated ; must be warmed and soaked, and it takes 

 that much more hay to get the 900 pounds ready to be distrib- 

 uted throughout the body. In feeding green, good ensilage, you 

 have it already warmed, already soaked, and put in the silo and 

 taken out in the very best condition possible as far as assimilation 

 into the system is concerned, and there is where the great poinl 



