The Florida agriculturist., 1905-12-27
The Silo as a Factor in Economical
Feeding

article on this subject which is we'll
worth a careful reading.
Following is a synopsis of a paper
on the above subject presented at Mis-
souri, State Dairy Convention by Hon.
John Patterson of Kirksville, and
which occasioned much favorable COM
ment by the dairymen and farmers in
attendance.
The economy in feeding cows is
not saving feed, for the more you can
get her to eat and digest the more
she will make for her keeper When
| think of that | remember what the
Swedish dairyman said; he fed barley
and said, eff | fed a half gallon
day, | get nothing for it; she needs
that for her own support. But if l
feed whole gallon, she gives enough
more to pay double for it, That
means if you feed little, you lose the
value of that. but if you feed gener-
Ously she makes you a profit. That
is, she ought to have all she can eat
and digest properly. Besides feed,
she must be kept in a comfortable
place, so as not to be exposed to
storms, rain and snow; she must be
handled by folks that know how to
be good to a cow There are some
men that it is not possible to teach
that. They will roar, swear and beat
her and for awkwardness and rough
ness of their own, where man that
would be gentle and kind would have
no trouble.
The first thing is the procuring of
feed. l take it that the dairyman is
farmer and runs his farm to produce
dairy products. Then he wants to
raise as nearly as possible all the feed
on the farm. He has it before him
to consider what to raise that will
make most, best and cheapest feed.
the known world for all the different
plants to find something good and
very productive. | have tried nearly
all the new things. such as penicillar-
la, sunhOwer, vetcheS, SugarCane, cow
peas and clovers and, of course, our
greatest of all feed, the common corn.
L say greatest because l think 1t is
best and yields the most per acre. But
the common way of letting 1t get dry
and hard, then gathering only tine
ears, grinding or feeding whole, IS
not the best When [ first begun
dairying l would cut and shuck it.,
run it through cutting machine that
mixed the corn with the fodder and
two to four pounds bran. | thought
| did as well as | could to get the most
benefit of the corn, but that left a
great deal of corn stalks the cows
would not eat with sufficient amount
of clover hay that was fairly good.
Next l raised cOwpeas and built
silos, cut the corn when it was some
what green and the corn a little too
hard for roasting ears. | mixed corn
and cowpeas, one load of peas to two
of corn. That makes an ens1lage that
COWS will eat better than corn alone.
But the ground | had n-peas did not
produce more than one-third as much
feed as good corn. So | think corn
pays best because you get the most
and with good clover hay and plenty
of ensilage, you get something near
a good ration. But for full flow of
milk it needs something of what corn
lacks mixed with the ensilage. This
time oats was a good crop and cheap
er than bran. A few pounds, say
three to six pounds, mixed in the en-
silage seems to give good results.
Don't need to grind oats when mix
ing with ensilage as the cow will
grind it good when mixed with some
thing she has to chew.
When l speak of the economy OF
putting corn in SilOS to feed cows, L