300 
Wisconsin State Agricultural Society. 
we can get it ground. I have been engaged in a diversified agricul¬ 
ture, making some butter all the time, raising some wool, a little 
clover-seed, and some oats, feeding some hogs and horses, and I have 
found it the cheapest food I can prepare for my cows—those that 
are giving milk—to raise corn, cut a portion of it up and shock it 
when I have time to do it, and feed it in that condition. Then I 
took a portion of that corn and shelled it, and mixed it with 
oats, and took it to a water-mill and got it ground. I feed a por¬ 
tion of that ground-feed to my milch-cows; another portion I 
feed to my hogs after cooking it. The question that arises in my 
mind is whether it will pay when labor is worth $20 a month, and 
corn can be raised at thirty-five cents a bushel, and sometimes for 
twenty-five cents, to attempt the cultivation of a root-crop. I can 
not do it without hired help. 1 can cultivate my own farm with 
my own family, with the horses and a little hired help; can raise a 
crop of oats and corn sufficient for the purposes that I have indi¬ 
cated. 
Mr. Clark: Mr. Eaton’s remarks have called my attention to a 
fact that I would like Mr. Curtis’s opinion on. In the county in 
which I reside I raise corn very easily. I wish to ask the question 
of Mr. Curtis with regard to corn-feed for cows. The question of 
labor has a good deal to do with it. The root-crop has failed often 
in our vicinity from rain, weeds, and insects. I think Mr. Curtis 
remarked that he cut up his corn and fed it to his stock in its nat¬ 
ural state. I have practiced that for a good many years. I have 
been in this State for nearly thirty years, and cut up all the corn 
I have raised, except nine acres one year. One man can cultivate 
forty acres, by using a planter and a harrow, using the sulky-culti¬ 
vator, etc., and keeping it clean from weeds. Now, when corn is 
cut up, if cut up before the frost, and well put up, it is harvested. 
It is hauled, in our section, any time during the winter. I want to 
know if cows, having all the green-corn they want to eat—that is, 
cut up and shocked—without any regard to feeding them anything 
else, if they are not wintered as cheaply, and make as much butter 
as though they were fed with all this variety mentioned? 
Mr. Curtis: I find cows will do well under those circumstances. 
I think you would find an increase of the quantity and also an im¬ 
proved quality of your butter, but it would not have as yellow a 
color as if roots were fed in addition, with fresh, early-cut clover- 
