which has now been lifted. With well matured corn put in a tight silo, nearly as fine an article of milk can be made as with grass. The finest quality and highest priced dairy products going into our markets are made from silo-fed cows. It should always be fed after milking as there is a gas or ferment which the cow seems to absorb, and fed just before or during milking, will often be found in the product.

For beef making the silo is of equal value as in milk production, but animals so fed have their pores more open and should not be exposed as can those fed a dry product. Silage-fed beef has a juiciness not found in that made from dry feeds alone.

When one is feeding heavily of silage, which is a laxative, he may with safety use increased amounts of the concentrated constipating feeds, such as cottonseed meal.

Silage is to be commended as a feed for calves or young stock. It is not a perfect food, lacking as it does bone and muscle material, but when these are supplied as above, to my mind the silo is the factor that enables a man on the average farm under present day conditions to carry on dairying with profit.

D. P. WITTER, Berkshire, N. Y.

Farmers' Institute Lecturer

A quarter of a century ago New York State farmers farmers purchased comparatively small amounts of grain, but at the present time a very large portion of the grain fed is brought into the state from the West or South. A good authority on the subject has recently said, "The people of New York State purchase annually more than two million tons of commercial feeding stuffs." Let us consider some of the reasons for this great change. In the early days farmers had their cows freshen in the spring and give milk during the summer months and early fall; but before winter they were dry, and during this non-producing period of from three to five months were fed on dry roughage. Most of the production period was while the cows were feeding on the then luxuriant pasture grasses, which were good food. The remainder of the milking period they were fed on roughage and grain raised on the farm.

When dairymen began to have cows freshen in the fall and give milk during the winter months a different condition arose. The roughage fed was largely timothy hay and dry corn stalks, two very carbonaceous foods. The grain was largely corn, oats and buckwheat. From this combination but a small amount of milk could be obtained.

It was soon found that the addition of linseed-oil meal, a rich protein feed, greatly increased the milk flow. The use of this feed was followed by the introduction upon the market of cottonseed and gluten meals. These feeding stuffs, all very rich in protein which the cows were greatly in need of, in addition to the carbonaceous farm ration, brought much better results.

Encouraged by better returns dairymen began to study the balanced ration and have since become quite efficient in the work of combining the different feeds most economically, and to best suit the varied conditions under which they are placed during

the year.

The manufacturers of oatmeal, starch and other products were quick to see an outlet for their by-products, and were soon turning out large quantities of materials, a few of which were good, but others were practically worthless. All of these have been mixed with some good materials and sold to farmers under high sounding names for a good price, and in many instances when the farmer parted with his money it was to see little or no return for it.

Oat hulls, from the oatmeal factories, which are not as valuable per ton as good oat straw, have been made into oat chop and sold for many times their value. Cottonseed meal is being displaced by cottonseed feed, the latter containing the shuck of cotton seed. Gluten meal has given way to gluten feed, which means that the corn bran has been added. Buckwheat middlings have mixed with them the shuck, an indigestible material that is worse than worthless as a food for animals; yet, if the farmer buys any of these feeds he must pay for such valueless materials.

Linseed oil, cottonseed meal, gluton meal, distillers dried grains and many of the other by-products are from 80 to 90 per cent. digestible and are rich in protein. They are almost a necessity to mix with the farm feeds, in order to compound an economical ration for winter feeding to produce milk.

It is not claimed that a farmer with an analysis of feeds, such as a chemist might furnish him, will be able to compound a ration for a dairy cow that will exactly fit her needs. Timothy hay differs in composition, depending on the time of cutting, the season (whether wet or dry) and the environment generally. Corn silage differs in composition for the same and other reasons. It varies from seventy-five to ninety pounds of water to the hundred; from a good supply of grain to none at all, and from a mildly acid to a very acid condition. For these reasons the average analysis may not be correct for the food being used to compound a particular ration, hence one is never sure that the

ration is correctly compounded.

Besides these variations the animals to be fed differ in constitutional make up and in ability to digest and assimilate food.

Regardless of variations in food and animal, the tables for compounding rations are very helpful in assisting the fariner to combine a more economical ration than would otherwise be possible.

Dairymen will do well to study carefully the cost and digestibility of the feeds they buy, for it is only the digestible part that is of value. None of the grains are entirely digestible, but the range is from about 60 to 90 per cent. in the better materials, wheat bran and distillers dried grains covering about those ex

tremes.

The following table gives the amount of digestible material and ash in one hundred pounds.

The above rations are alike except that in number two, brewers dried grains are substituted for the distillers dried grains used in number one. The brewers dried grains are estimated at $28 and the distillers dried grains at $32 a ton. One-half pound less of the distillers grains are used than of the brewers grains; yet, on account of the higher digestibility of the former, the total digestible nutrients are more in number one and the cost a little less.

A comparison of rations three and four shows that number four is more expensive than number three, yet it does not contain as much digestible material and is not as good a ration. The difference is brought about by the use of three pounds of wheat bran, in number four, in place of two pounds of distillers dried grains, in number three, the latter being enough more digestible to make it cheaper than wheat bran, even at six dollars more a ton.