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Wisconsin Dairymen's Association.
and therefore the best time to pack your silage is not before it is ripe,
nor after it to ripe but just when it is right. The first silo in America
was built in 1876; the second one in 1877. 1 saw that silo and saw
the silage from it. Way back in the early days of the silo there were
men who said that putting corn into the silo at the right time actually
added to the feeding value of the corn, and some of us sneered at that
proposition. We said, very naturally, it isn't possible to take out more
than you put in. Chemists had analysed it and found it had lost in
feeding value. I am willing to say, and go on record as saying, that
future generations may know what I think about it, that it does add
to the feeding value of corn to put it into the silo. It does lose in dry
matter, in protein and in carbohydrates, and the professors will say I
am wrong. I know a good many farmers that have fed silage during
the summer, and every time when they commenced to feed fresh corn
that was in just the right stage to put in the silo, their cows dropped
off in milk.
How do we get more out of the silo than we put into it? I answer,
it has gone through a process that is something like digestion. It is
more easily masticated and assimilated, and the animal makes better
use of it.
I shall be gone some of these days, but some time or other people
will say "Goodrich was right." It takes some nerve to say these
things
and I have hesitated about saying them nearly ten years.
THE WISCONSIN COW COMPETITION.
PROF. F. W. WOEL, MADISON.
Before we leave this other proposition I think it is only right to
say we need not wait until Mr. Goodrich is gone to agree with him.
I am sure many in this association agree with him now. The fact
that the number of silos in this state has trebled in the last two or
three years is proof that a good many people agree with him.
THE WiscoNsiN DAIRY COW COMPETITION.
BY PBOF. F. W. WOLL, OF Wis. AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION.
The Wisconsin Dairy Cow Competition was planned to show the
production of the cows under ordinary normal dairy conditions. This
object was not and could not in the nature of things be fully secured,
I
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