The Farmer. Ensilage and Dairy Cattle.

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2051, 29 August 1885, Page 6 (Supplement)

The Farmer. Ensilage and Dairy Cattle.

In a letter to the Scotsman, Mr. E. T. Blunt, of Blaby Hill, Leicester, writes— "l have several times been asked tho question whether I considered ensilage a substitute for hay or roots. Will you allow me to give you th« following figures ? which, I think, conclusively prove that it is not only a substitute, but superior as a food for dairy cows to cither one or the other, or even to both combined. Five acres of clover, producing ten tons of hay, will produce forty tona of ensilage. The cost of making it into hay, stacking, and thatching will be fifteen shillings per acre ; therefore, if the value of the bay is £4 per ton, the value of the orop for that purpose is £36 sa. I find the oost of making ensilage to be 4*. 6d. par ton, including a fair charge for use and depreciation of silo and press ; therefore, add £9 to the £3G ss. and you have £45 6s. as the value of the forty tons of ensilage, comparing it with hay at £4 per ton. For aevoral weeks I have fed flte cows entirely upon ensilage, and find they consume three hundred and forty pounda per day, or 1 ton 1 ewt. 1 qr. per week, equal to 30 tons 6 cwt. 1 q r ._ Bft y 40 tons— for thiity-seven weeks ; the cost of which, ascertained as above, is £45 s*. Thus, eaoh cow will oost rather less than si. per week. The same number of cows, fed upon h&y and roots, will consume four hundred pounds of roots and eighty pounds of hay per day ; or for thirty-seven weeks. 40 tons 5 owt. of roots and 9 tons 5 cwt. of Day. The roots, at fifteen shillings per too, will amount to £31 13 a. Dd. ; and the hay at £4 per ton, to £37— a, total cost of £71 13i. 9J., or 7s. Od. per cow per week. For five 00 w« for thirty seven weeks wo have, therefore, a baJance in favor of ensilage of £25 Bs. 9d., or 2s. Od. per cow per week. Each system produces about tho same quantity of milk ; but the ensilage-fed cows are decidedly in the best condition ; whilst their milk yields four or five per cent, more cream, and is as sweet and good aa that from oows fed on grass in summer. With such facts as these before me, I was rather surprised (0 see the notice issued by the manager of the Anglo-Swlw Condensed Milk Company that he would not use milk ' from ensilage fed oows. lat once requested Dr. Emmerson, the public analyst for the oounties of Leicester, Northampton, and Ratland, to analyse the milk from those cows which I had fed entirely upon ensilage for several weeks. The following is his report — " The sample 13 of speoifio gravity 1034, and consists 01 tho following percentages — Total solids, 13 120 ; fat, 3 300 ; solids not fat, 9.820 ; ash, -83 ; water, 80 880. These reaults represent a milk of first-rate quality ; and prove that the food was nutritious, and that the cows had been in good health, ao as to enable the mammary glands to seorctc a milk so rioh in albumen, fat, &t. The mleroaoopio examination showed the usual abundant small oil globules, and absence of pus cells or any foreign matter." In a letter accompanying his report, Dr. Emmerson says—" The only possible objection to silos oan be when they are Imperfectly constructed, so as to allow more air to reach the inclosed vegetable matter than admits of oxygenatiod beyond a oertain amount, and decomposition begins; then, of course, the food would be unwholesome." With reference to this, permit me to say that attention to two simple rules will ensure good ensilage. The orop should be quite green and full of moisture when placed in the ailo ; then, after ten days or a fortnight, it ahould be subjected to a continuous pressure of not lees than 150 pounds to the square foot. I obtain this pressure by mcana of levers, which are easily adjusted and require little attention, and oan be managed by an ordinary farm-laborer. The cost of the sflo, hitherto a difficulty, neod deter no one. I find that wooden eiloa make the best ensilage, and cost little. With such faota as theae before us, and also when we take into consideration that two crops for ensilage may be obtained in one year, that in making it we arc quite independent of the weather, and that many crops may be grown on land now growing corn at a ruinoua loss, whioh will give a much greater return per acre for ensilage than clover, I think we may look for still better results than the above, and may confidently rolj upon our arable land thus becoming a source of profit, instead of loss, to as.