Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1911-08-15
"sPEED THE PLOw."
Deriving Good From Evil.

VALUABLE LESSONS TAUGHT BY THE
DRoUTH.
How easy it is to think over a matter
when necessity confronts onel How
hard it is to bring the mind to focus upon
a possible future necessity and figure out
the best way TO meet it! To-day in three
leading farm papers are articles about
summer silos and their benefits. Each
tells of shortened crops of hay aud grains,
save the corn crop. That in some way
on good land-seems always to pull
through, and the advice of these journals
is to build silos now, put in all the corn
crop aud if possible have silo filled for
next summer. The evidence is that the
dairy, silsge fed, knows no summer
drouth. How the summer pastures last
year were burned by the long drouth! 1t
was buy feed, buy more, all summer.
This summer the drouth was-and is
long, and the sun, with whitening heat,
burned and scorched the pastures into
almost deserts over whole sections, and
it's end is not yet. The man who last
year planned for the summer silo and
executed his plan, this season has his re-
ward for thinking year ahead.
II is to be doubted if the dairymen OF
this country have anything like full ap-
preciation of the corn plant in the eco
Monies Of the dairy. All over the country
save in few favored areas-the grain
crops, the meadows and the like have
been far below half the average in yield,
but where the corn crop was planted on
good ground, cultivated shallow and fire.
quently, the corn is promising. A cult
waited crop always passes through a
drouth with far less injury than those
crops where cultivation is impossible.
This year the corn crop is the dairy
mans best hold, and never was II more
in evidences that this crop should go into
silOS, aud its last possible food content
be saved and used in stock feeding, and
many a man will see for the first
time that an acre of good corn sliced
feeds, acre against acre, as much as any
other four acres of his farm, and as for
pasture land, as il runs, an acre of Blue
Ridge silage feeds against eight acres of
average pasture in drouthy year.
Look at the food value OF an acre OF
full growth silage. At the Ohio station
such an acre produced in the neighbor-
hood of eight thousand pounds OF digest
ible food solids, practically equal In
amount to the solids in eleven tons of
hay, and this silsge had no equal in the
winter, and in summer fed against the
best pasture grass in results. 1t is in
evidence that many farmer last winter
with large store'of corn fodder lost IN
unconsumed stalks enough value to have
erected silo.
Another evidence of the value of the
summer silo is the fact that where silage
is made from well cared and near-mature
corn very little grain is needed, the best
at most being one pound OF cottonseed
meal daily. NV neighbor all through the
very bad drouth of 1910 fed forty pounds
of silage daily, with no grain, and no
dairy MIXED better than did his and the
same thing is being repeated this year
with as great satisfaction. All evidence
reported is of the same satisfactory tenor.
The trend of investigation is that next to
a large producing COW the solution OF
the dairy problem is greater amounts OF
available foods on fewer acres and bridg-
ing over drouths with less demand upon
the feed mills. The big corn crop and the
summer and winter silo seem the most
sure solution of this problem. A 800
acre farm and 80 COW dairy seem out OF
all reasonable proportion.
One of the great deprecating things
about dairying in the past has been that
too little attention was paid to it from
start to finish; no regard was paid to the
COW or her ancestry, her feeding, devel-
opment, stable OF sanitation. 1t was
catch. a catch-cau with the COW, and she
caught for herself first. Now the dairy
man is compelled to be painstakiDg with
the barn end of the dsirying; the impor-
tance of the COW part of II is becoming
more apparent TO the farmer, and men
are asking, What kind of a COW aud what
breed do want for my dairy to meet the
market demand? So dairies are coming
to carry breed lines in looks and type;
sires from noted milking strains are be-
ing purchased; feeds are being more dis
purchased; more silos are
being erected; more promising heifer
calves are raised and fewer cows are
purchased. All over the Western Re
serve there has been a spripging up of
dairymen who actually know cows, know
breed lines, take stock in prepetency
aud type and now own great producing
herds, and are selling the surplus at
surprising figures to their neighbors
to better their herds. These men were
not inspired by city inspectors to do bet
ter, but, like famous old War Governor
of the West they "seen their duty and
done it," and made dairying study
and even profession, not by self in
spired performance, but they sought out
the best and made application OF it as
they could best adapt it to their needs,
and have actually become famous in their
line. These men find no hardship in
better methods and appliances in santa
ton and fencing up frog ponds. While
it may seem irksome to some to have
their paths pointed out to them, in the
long run it will be found that the better
way has no roads crossing 1t at angles,
and the highways of best dairying run to
one prospective point.-John Gould,
Ohio, in Tribune Farmer.