girl who did the milking and took | If they are swinging stanchions, they Icare of the cows. may answer the purpose, but the Mr. Utter-Where do those "new-stiff, rigid stanchions ought to be comer" girls come from? done away with. Mr. Moore-This Norway. one came from The Chairman-The stanchion I spoke of is the swinging stanchion, Mr. Aderhold-How much time did and the intention is to put in a light you spend at that dairy? The Chairman-That is a leading question, we won't require the witness to answer, but we will say that he is out for the educational benefit of the state and that we will permit him to stay a little while to help along the cause of education. There is another important thing that comes in on this question of the cleanliness of cows, and that is to have your stall just right in length, so the cow stands and lies down in the right place. A Member-According to that, we would have to have the cows all the same length. partition also. But you could do it with these stalls that have no stanchions in. The idea is to regulate the length so that every cow has a stall in proportion to her length. Mr. Aderhold-I said yesterday, under the subject of "Lawful Milk," that this stable inspection was due to begin any time, and probably by next fall there will be a good deal of inspection made. Now, the law says that in case these inspectors find flagrant violations they shall prosecute and the inspectors are sworn to do their duty. As I have said, it is the purpose of the chief commissioner to obtain an enforcement of these laws as quickly as possible and with as little prosecution as is necessary to get the results. I do not want to make any threats at all, but you must understand that where we find flaMr. Aderhold-Have your gutter on grant violations of these laws there is the bias, so that at one end of the liable to be trouble, and the object of row the stalls will be a little longer the Dairy and Food Commissioner in than at the other, and have adjust-furnishing a man to attend each institute this winter and discuss this The Chairman-No, we can have a movable manager, or it is a simple matter to build some stalls a little longer than the other if your cows are of different sizes. able fasteners. The Chairman-Some of the stan-subject with the farmers, was to offered have give them an be changed chions that are an extension, they to fit any length. being can Mr. Convey-I do not believe in having stanchions for cows; I think we have a good deal better system for handling cows. I think people should be punished for putting cattle in any thing like the old style rigid stanchion. They are convenient, but they are unclean, because the cows will not lie at right angles of the stanchions. Where you have a good cow giving lots of milk and a large udder, Ishe will lie flat over on her side and another cow will step on her teats. opportunity to get in line with the law, and where it is necessary to make changes, do so before the inspector comes. The Chairman-I want to emphasize what Mr. Aderhold has said. In sending out men to attend the Institutes, the object has been that the farmers should not get into trouble, that they should be forewarned, but the trouble about this thing is that the fellows that bring in the dirty milk to the factories do not come to the institutes, they are too busy at home not cleaning their cows. a great thing for a man to get the It is idea into his head that he had better keep his manure heap at home instead of taking it to the factory in his milk. We have some samples here left from the straining of milk and that would be an object lesson to many a farmer if he would only come and see it. A The dealer said he would do so. week or two passed and he didn't hear from the dealer, and the Dean asked him about it, why he had not furnished those cattle, and he said he had not found anything that would suit him. He said, "There is about a carload down here in what the farmer thinks is pretty good shape. Mr. Utter Called to the Chair. I think you could get them to feed for The Chairman-If we should go a month." The Dean said, "Buy them." down to the stock yards at Chicago So they were brought onto the agand ask what they thought of Wis- ricultural farm and they were fed two consin beef, we would not get a very months. He finally had the same flattering reply. Even where we dealer take them off to Chicago and have pretty well bred steers, they are sell them, and he came back and not usually well fed, and perhaps the said, "They brought a fair price," average farmer does not realize what and the Dean asked who bought them, a really well fed steer means. Even was it Swift or Armour, or who? He our Dean Henry was a little mistaken said, "I sold them to a feeder to take in his conception of what a well fed them down and finish them off about beef is. He wanted to fatten a car 40 miles from Chicago." That seems load of beef on some experiments and to be about the idea we have of feedhe went to a local buyer and asked ing beef in this country, and so this him to pick up a good, thrifty lot talk we are going to have about of beeves, he said he would like to "Silage for Beef Production," comes fatten them for the Chicago market. | in all right. 15 Mr. Imrie. SILAGE FOR BEEF PRODUCTION. David Imrie, Roberts, Wis. My subject, as you have heard, is silage for beef production. The production of beef for the last few years has been rather discouraging, as prices are low and feed stuffs are comparatively high, so that the producer of beef has made but little money, but on all Wisconsin farms the grains and grasses should be fed to live stock, as we can market the crops in a more concentrated form and retain more of the fertility on the farm by so doing. We are not all dairymen or sheep men and we all like good, juicy beefsteak and some one will have to raise the beef. To make money out of any article placed on the market, we must produce a good article and do it as cheaply as possible, therefore we should look to what our feed costs us. Some of the Elements that Enter into Beef Production. To make beef cheaply, we must have the right kind of animals to feed and the right kind of feed to develop them. They should be put on the market young, as it costs less to make a pound of gain on the young animal. Then keep them growing from birth to the day they keted by feeding the right kind of feeds that will produce growth and fat. Where corn can be grown successfully, it is our cheapest fat producer. Having grown our corn crop, how can we save it so that we can realize the most from it? are mar I contend (and all of you that have silos will bear me out in this) that we can harvest our corn crop and place it before our stock cheaper in the form of silage than in any other way and with less waste, as it is all consumed. For beef production we want silage that is rich in corn. Do not plant it too close in the drill, about 8 inches is right, so that every stalk will have a good ear on it. Put it in the silo at the proper time and you have an ideal food for growing calves, young cattle and fattening steers. These steers were fed in three periods each of 70 days duration, making 210 days. Prof. Otis says: 'In the grain column it will be noticed that the silage steers required a large amount of grain per 100 corn (two-thirds oats and one-third | 124. I will take only two lots from corn), clover hay and shredded corn this experiment. Each lot were two fodder. Feed until pasture is good. years old, weighing about 1,000 The next fall commence to feed be- pounds each live weight. One lot fore pastures begin to fail. Bring was fed silage, alfalfa, corn and them to fall feed gradually. In fat- kafir corn; the other lot had alfalfa, tening, remember you cannot fatten corn and kafir corn. I will not give on silage alone, no matter how well the experiment in detail, but a sumeared the corn is, you must have mary of it. more corn. We feed about like this. In the morning, 35 to 50 pounds of silage and a good panful of ground oats and barley, or oats and corn, or bran and corn, or shorts and corn; about 10 o'clock they have what shock corn they will eat. Their pounds gain in the third period. This mangers are also filled with clover is partly accounted for by the fact hay. At night, they get the same that the silage gave out during the feed of silage with the oats and bar latter part of the period, when it ley, etc. After this is eaten, they became necessary to feed dry hay get crushed or snapped corn, what alone, and partly by the fact that the they want, a little oil meal is also silage steers fattened more rapidly beneficial. After they are on full feed and were ready for market earlier we generally feed them from 100 to than the others and consequently 120 days. gained less near the close of the experiment." They were sold to Armour & Co. The silage lot sold for 25 cents per hundred more than those fed without silage. The silage lot was pronounced excellent, fat enough for the ordinary trade. The silage lot contained the largest per cent of fat. Armour & Co. said: "This lot possessed the per cent of fat desired by the packers." The carcasses of the silage lot showed good quality. They were covered with the right amount of fat, the loins and crops were excellent; the carcasses showed very little waste and were salable in any market. The trouble with us farmers is, we cannot tell by actual figures just what is gained by the use of silage in producing beef, as we do not weigh the animals nor the feed consumed; the only way we can judge is from one year to another. As we have fed steers on dry feed, on whole corn and on ground corn and with silage, I will say I have never had as good success as when I fed silage in conjunction with the other feeds mentioned. We allow the steers to run in a yard and feed in the barn, where they can go in and out as they please, with fresh water and salt always be fore them. It will be noticed that for every 100 pounds of gain the 471 pounds of silage saved 18 pounds of grain and 156 pounds of alfalfa. At 54 cents per cwt. for grain (average of corn and kafir corn) and 271⁄2 cent per cwt. for alfalfa, this 471 pounds of silage made a saving of 52.62 cents, but this is not all. The silage steers sold for 25 cents per cwt. more than those without silage. This added makes the 471 pounds of silage worth 77.62 cents, or, at that rate, $3.29 per ton. די г Mr. Imrie-At just the same stage that you would cut it to put it in the shock, while the stalks are green, but the ears are ripe. Now, to put corn in the silo, it should be of a variety that the ears will ripen first. There are certain varieties where the stalk and the ears ripen at the same time, or the stalk perhaps a little before, but I would have for the silo some kind of corn of a variety that the ear will ripen first and the stalk will be still green. A Member-What do you consider the best corn for the silo? Mr. Imrie-Whatever kind of corn that can be raised most successfully Average land in Wisconsin will produce from 12 to 25 tons of silage per acre. With the yield of 12 tons per acre, there is an income, accord-in your locality. We use yellow or ing to the above experiment, of $39.84 per acre; at 25 tons the income would be $83.25 per acre. The silage fed steers made a profit of $4.10 per head, while the same grade of steers, on the same feed, except silage, lost $1.47 per head. From the above experiment and others from different states and from my own experience, I am fully convinced that silage is as beneficial in the production of beef as in the production of milk or mutton. DISCUSSION. Mr. Imrie I realize that this be ing right in a dairy section, there would probably be little interest in this subject; very likely there is not a man in the room who has fed steers for years, and one reason has been because the prices have been SO low where they were feeding them for a long period it didn't pay. Through experiments at the station, they have found that they could not utilize pasture ог anything of that kind, it had to be weighed and figured up, and all this counted against the profit. about eight there will be white Dent and I have used a little A Member-Where the corn gets ripe in the ear, is not most of the substance gone out of the stalk? Mr. Imrie-No, sir, it is just at its height, very best point you can cut it is just when the ear is ripe. Α Member-You know that as soon as grain of any kind matures or ripens to seed, the substance is gone out of the stalk. In growing flowers, the more constantly you will pick them and keep them from seeding, the better they will bloom, be cause the substance goes from the stalk, but as soon as they mature, it seems to me that the substance is gone pretty much from the stalk. Mr. Imrie-It might be gone from the stalk, but it is in the leaf and fullest development just ripe, all grains A Member-About how ripe would ear, it is at its you put corn in the silo? when the ear is |