The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-06-18
eIarirnHnraL
Faults Found with Ensilage.


that corn, and especially corn fodder, is a
badly balanced food for milk cows. By a
"well balanced food land the same idea
applies to fertilizers, which are plant
food) we mean food which contains TIE
different elements of nutrition in the
proper proportions to secure the result de-
signed in feeding. All farmers know
that there is way to feed an OK for
work, and another way to feed him for
beef; also way to feed dry COW, and
another way to feed COW in milk. In a
rough way most farmers have more or
less correct idea of how to do these things.
When scientific men undertake to study
them they merely try by weighing and
measuring the feed, the animal, and its
product, to get more exact ideas than can
be got by the eye and the hand alone.
Just as we should object to have our sugar
and tea guessed off by the grocer, so
close, calculating farmer, who is intelligent
and keen, will not be satisfied even with
his own guessing, where he can apply the
tests of weight and measurement to any
question. Many farmers now test their
hogs, their fatting beasts, and their milk
COWS and their products, in this way.
Eventually, this method will become so
common, and so advantageous, that farm
ers who refuse to use it will find them
selves left behind in the race for profit in
their business.
We have never been able to make good
milk for long, and have never made even
fair butter, when the COWS were fed only
on corn fodder. The milk becomes thin,
the cream becomes white and scanty, and
the COW gets out of condition, on both
corn fodder and fodder corn. BY corn
fodder we mean the ripe stalks with the
ears removed. By fodder corn we mean
sown corn, cut and used specially for
feeding, green or dry. In the last case
the result is better if the sowing is thin
enough to allow ears to form, and in the
first case it is better if the gathered corn
is ground and fed with the fodder. But
in none of the cases, where corn is the
only article fed, is the, result satisfactory
in the long run.
As the defect is in the corn plant itself,
it not having the right composition Gas
good grass has) to give the right result in
feeding, it is not astonishing that exclu.
sive feeding of ensilaged corn should also
be failure. 1t is still corn; the silo has
added nothing to it, though when we'll
ensilaged it is preserved in soft, digesti-
BILE state that makes it very acceptable to
all cattle.
At Houghton Farm, where experiments
on agriculture and feeding are carefully
and systematically tried, Major Alvord
took ten COWS, all of them giving about
the same quantity of milk, and fed five
of them on ensilage and five on good
meadow hay-giving the first five all the
ensilage they would eat. The milk was
carefully weighed and tested, and the
product churned separately. 1t was found
that while the ensilage increased the
product of milk, there was decrease of
fatty matter, until there came a time
when the cream from that milk would not
make butter.
Now while we think it was mistake
to give the ensilage-fed cows all they
would eat of food of which they are so
very fond Gust as it would be to give
them all they would eat of bran, or oats,
or corn-meaD, we are quite prepared to
find the result of exclusive ensilage.feed.
ing much what it was. If the expert.
ment were repeated with definite in
stead of an ad libitum ration, judgment
being exercised not to allow the COWS to
hurt themselves by over-eating, the test
would be prolonged, perhaps, but SINH
lar result would be reached in the end.
Corn is not sufficiently heterogeneous
food for an exclusive diet to milk COWS.
1t furnishes plenty of excellent material
for butter, but you can't have the butter
unless the cheese comes with it in the
milk. Corn-fodder does not furnish the
material for the cheesy matter, aud con-
sequently sound and natural milk is not
secreted. Let US take an illustration
from crop-feeding, to make this palmer
We will take the corn crop itself. II
must have nitrogen, phosphoric acid and
potash in the soil, or it will not grow and
make crop of grain. If the nitrogen is
lacking (although corn calls for but a
little nitrogen, and has but little nitrogen
in iD the crop will be failure. Now
just as the application of a fertilizer de
ficient in nitrogen results in failure Of
the corn, 80 the feeding of corn exclu
sively to COWS fails in producing natura
milk, because corn itself has too little nj
trogen to make the cheesy matter of tn
milk, and as this cannot be made, tn
butter will not be made either, since boil
must 60 together, or fail together.
This is rather singular thing, at frs
sight. Corn, both stalk and grain, is ricl
in butter-making material, yet because
is lacking in albuminoids (nitrogen CON
pounds) we cannot get the butter into tn