FLORIDA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 
114 
PROFITS FROM FEEDING CATTLE ENSILAGE 
You can make a profit of from $50.00 
to $100.00 per acre by growing corn af¬ 
ter other crops and feeding this to cattle 
in the shape of ensilage. This may seem 
a little large at first sight, but let us look 
into the matter a little. You can grow 
from ten to tweny tons of corn on good 
land; feeders have found out by experi¬ 
ence in feeding that this silage is worth 
from six to twelve dollars per ton. Well, 
you can grow and put it in the silo for 
$2.00 to $3.00 per ton. 
Now some will say that it takes too 
much money to buy cattle to feed. It is 
not necessary that you buy these cattle. 
There are plenty of men that own or will 
buy cattle and let you fatten them on 
this ensilage, you getting pay for all the 
gain they make. You should weigh the 
cattle when they are put in your feed lots 
and weigh them again when they come 
out, you being paid for the difference in 
weight. 
Now to get the best results from this 
ensilage or all there is in feeding it, you 
want to run some hogs with the cattle. 
Of course you will understand that to get 
the most out of the feeding business you 
have got to get some good cattle. Still 
you can make money feeding any kind 
that will fatten. 
THE CHANGE 
Instead of letting our fields after each 
vegetable crop grow up in weeds and 
grass, then cutting this crop, setting fire 
to it and burning all the humus and plant 
food up, and buying more high priced 
fertilizers and growing another vege¬ 
table crop we grow the corn, erect some 
silos, put the corn in and feed cattle. 
To get the best results from these cattle 
we will need to feed something more than 
ensilage, and to make the most clear 
money we must grow these necessary 
feeds. So plant some velvet beans and 
peanuts. You can let the cattle run on the 
first and gather them or you can gather 
and feed in the hull or run through a 
feed mill. The peanuts can be gathered 
and cured and fed as a hay or run through 
a mill and fed. The peanuts can be grown 
on a separate piece of land or planted 
between the corn rows. But the beans 
must not be planted in with the corn 
that is to go into the silo or you will 
have trouble in handling the corn. But to 
have a legume on all your land each year 
you can at the last cultivation of the 
corn sow beggarweed. You can turn this 
back in your land or make hay out of it. 
I consider this the best crop for hay that 
we can grow on the truck lands. 
GROWING MORE VEGETABLES AT LESS COST 
How we are going to accomplish this 
under our change of methods will be by 
saving all the manure we can make while 
feeding our livestock, growing a legume 
crop on the lands each year, thus getting 
nitrogen from the air and storing in the 
soil at no cost, also adding more humus 
to our soils, making them stand more 
rain and more drought. That may sound 
like the Irishman that blew hot and cold 
from the same place, still it is true. 
Yes, gentlemen, if we grow these le¬ 
gume crops each year, feed livestock, 
save all the manure and apply it to our 
