ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. Y g>j 



crop put up in 1900 and fed in 1900-1901. We planted 55 acres of ensilage 

 age crop in spring of 1900. On the 28th day of July of the same year we 

 were obliged, on account of the drought, to begin feeding this ensilage 

 crop. We fed 40 cows and about 35 mixed young things from the 20th 

 day of July until the last day of September, when we cut our crop and 

 put what was left in the silos. We filled two silos, one of 150 tons and 

 one of 250 tons, and continued feeding. The first day the ensilage was 

 dropped in the silos, we took it out and fed it. W T e fed during the winter an 

 average of 85 head of cattle, and fed more or less to our hogs and chick- 

 ens. We fed all that every animal would clean up readily and cleanly. 

 We fed up to the last of April and then took out the young things and put 

 in the pasture with the hogs. The cows we continued on the ensilage 

 feed up to the 18th day of June; then the grass got so good, in the pasture 

 we turned them out ten hours for a few days, to get them weaned from 

 the ensilage. We were receiving in the creamery something like 725 

 pounds of milk and after having them out for about ten days it shrunk 

 to 645 pounds of milk and the pasture at its flush. We at once commenc- 

 ed feeding ensilage again andico ntinued during the summer months, 

 with the result I will give you.. 



I have a record from the creamery from July 1st to September 18th. 

 If you dairymen will go back to July, August and September, you will 

 remember it was a most severe time for milk, severer than we have had 

 for some years; the dairy papers show shrinkage from 50 to 75 per cent 

 of the milk yield throughout' the country. This record shows that on 

 July 1st we got 614 pounds of milk and 675, 641, 636 and on toward last 

 of July 675, 655. On September 1st, 610, 630, 619, 612, 635, 606 and so on 

 up to the last day of September, 675 that clay. That's from an average 

 of 30 cows and heifers. That illustrates the value of ensilage. Our pas- 

 ture was as bare as the road. The 55 acres I mentioned fed our cows to 

 the first Monday in September. We fed them all through the season up 

 to the first Monday in September; I should have said that first. 



I got a circular from a silo manufacturer in Michigan a little while 

 ago, stating what a man had accomplished in ensilage and wanting to get 



