ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



63 



silo. The value of ensilage has been based almost entirely on succulence, 

 and not on the food elements it contains. The plant having a high per 

 cent of moisture, has a large proportion of its food elements in solution, 

 •{vhich is practically digested food, as the digestive juices of the stomach 

 and intestines must reduce all food to liquids before they can be takea 

 up by the lacteals. The green plant is most readily assimulated and 

 turned into milk. But the amoimi of milk produced from the plant de- 

 pends entirely upon the elements contained in the plant and taken up by 

 absorption, and used by the cow for milk production. 



The quantity of the milk may be large or small, the quality poor or rich, 

 but the solids come from the plant. Just what elements produce the 

 fat in milk may still be in doubt, but the casine is indisputably tHe 

 product of the nitrogen compounds of the plant. Because the plant is 

 watery is not proof of its feeding value. But the plant containing the 

 greatest amount of the essential milk elements in solution, and that is 

 the least acted on or effected by ferments in curing and storing, is the 

 best plant for the dairyman to raise. The method of curing, and the 

 place to raisie this plant to retain the most of these elements in the nearest 

 soluble condition, at the least expense, is the method and building which 

 the dairyman needs. 



We do not have plant, animal or milk production without their pro- 

 portionate nitrogen compounds. Physiologists agree that most of the 

 protein is digested in the stomach and most of the fat after it enters the 

 intestines. This being true, the dairy cow is well adapted for using 

 bulky feed containing a large per cent of protein. This point of ensilage 

 value had not been given its proper consideration in our opinion. Most 

 ■of the dairy, farm and live stock journals have several columns or 

 pages each week, giving ia minute detail the relative value of the differ- 

 ent grains, mill products, hay and fodder, but I have yet to see attention 

 •called to the comparative value of the elemants contained in plants 

 stored in a silo; except to say that "the corn was heavily eared." That 

 referred to the old superstition that "corn with ears was richer feed." 



If corn, oats, peas, beans, bran, oil meal, cotton seed; meal, brewers' 

 grains, etc., have such a wide range of feeding value, based on the 



