ILLINOIS DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 213 



saving of 19.8 cents on every 100 lbs. of milk produced. If al- 

 falfa hay can be grown on your farm, it can be grown at a less cost 

 than $10.00 per ton while I doubt if you can secure bran for much 

 less than $20.00 per ton. 



The same station also found that cowpea hay was practically 

 as efficient as alfalfa. Cowpea hay can surely be produced in this 

 section for less than $10.00 per ton. Let us figure a little. In a 

 ton of bran there are 244 lbs. of digestible protein, and in a ton 

 of alfalfa there are 220 lbs. of digestible protein. Only one- 

 ninth more protean in the bran and yet it costs twice as much. It 

 is possible that the protein in the alfalfa is not quite as efficient as 

 that in the bran, because more nutrients are used up in the process 

 of digesting the coarser materials; but this difference, by no 

 means, makes up for the difference in price. 



The Maryland station also found that a ration of alfalfa hay 

 and corn meal produced more milk than a ration of corn silage 

 and concentrates high in protein. 



The same station has also shown that cowpea silage and corn 

 meal are superior for milk production to corn silage and con- 

 centrates high in protein. 



This does not necessarily mean that it would be cheaper to 

 substitute cowpea silage and corn meal for corn silage and con- 

 centrates high in protean, because it is more difficult to get a large 

 quantity of good cowpea silage than of corn silage. However, all 

 this tends to show that there is a possibility of substituting, to a 

 very large extent, home-grown crops for the high-priced con- 

 centrates. There is ( however, a limit to this substitution, because 

 of the bulky nature of the legume hay. Cows giving a very large 

 quantity of milk would require some concentrates high in pro- 

 tein, but it stands the dairy farmer in hand to substitute as far as 

 possible. The fact that the legumes are palatable is a great argu- 

 ment in favor of their more common use. 



The important question today with the dairyman is not so 

 much how to get a better price for his product as how to decrease 

 the cost of production. Hitherto, the high-priced foods have 

 been the concentrates or by-products. It is not probable that 



