The total product of milk for the week was 581 pounds, 8 ounces. Average temperature in the barn, 38° Fahrenheit.

This ration conld not be continued longer for want of oat hay.

It was now intended to arrange a ration, the coarse feed of which should be clover hay, but it was impossible to get a good sample, so this had to be abandoned after one week's trial.

The cows could not be induced to eat the poor hay and a different ration was arranged. The record of the work is given, however, to avoid a break in the data.

The total weight of milk was 572 pounds, 8 ounces.

The cost of the ration

for each cow per day was 14 to 16 cents, not including care.

A ration was now arranged, which, for nutritive value, exceeded any yet

fed, but the sugar beets were omitted from it. It was as follows:

The hay was excellent. The wheat had been injured in storage, yet the feeding value was not materially affected.

Omitting the beets left the cows without a noon feed, and a small quantity of the ration was placed in the box at noon in lieu of the beets. After the first week the wheat was increased to 10 pounds per day. The cost of this ration was 28 to 30 cents, not including labor. It was fed for three weeks and eaten with great relish by all the cows. The detailed results are set forth in the following table:

The total product of milk was, for the three weeks respectively, 567 pounds, 15 ounces, 556 pounds, 2 ounces and 559 pounds, 15 ounces.

It was expected that this ration would under the favorable conditions of mild weather produce a better flow of milk than the above showing. It suggests that the value of beets in a ration for milk production is much greater than their estimated feeding value.

The above ration was sufficiently high in nutritive value to have maintained a full flow of milk, unless there were attributed special value to the beets as milk producing food. Analyses of the corn fodder, oat straw and oat hay used in the above work will be found in the report of the chemist.

The foregoing work based on an attempt to so manipulate the common coarse foods, and by-products, as to make a complete ration from them leads to the following conclusions. That coarse heavy corn fodder cannot safely be mixed with meals or concentrated foods as loss from the refuse not eaten is quite sure to result. The smaller portion of the stalks and the leaves are well eaten and their value would be materially enchanced if they could be separated from the coarser portion.

It is very desirable to feed the concentrated foods with the coarser as this secures better digestion by insuring remastication. Possibly if the whole mass could have been steamed it would all have been eaten. This we were not prepared to test. It seems evident that straw, though it can be so managed that stock will eat it is detrimental to a milk ration.

There is no doubt that beets have a much greater value in a milk producing ration than their estimated feeding value would indicate. Of these, Lane's Imperial Sugar beet seems to be one of the best. Over 20 tons of this variety have been grown per acre here. Warmed water for milch cows apparently adds to the general conditions of success, and aids digestion by preserving the stomach from the shock caused by drinking cold water. Much more water is taken when warmed than of cold. In arranging a ration the first thing to be sought is not what foods will furnish the ingredients, theoretically necessary, but what will furnish them at least cost in a practicable form for feeding.

SOILING CATTLE.

Six cows were selected from the farm herd in August, and for a little over one month so handled as to test the value of soiling for cows. Three of the cows were kept in a closed yard where they were fed three times a days such quantities of green food as they would eat, the other three were left with the dairy herd on excellent green clover pasture.

The condition of the herd for good results could not have been bettered, hence it was a favorable time to compare their results with stock fed in the yard.

The following table presents in a brief, comprehensive view the milking records of the cows. The time is divided into several periods, and these are not of equal length, but the number of days for each period is given, and the averages per day for each period also, from which all comparison must be made.

Cows one, two, and three were fed in yard, and numbers four, five, and six were with the herd in pasture.

The animals selected were all good, fair milkers, common stock and grade animals. Those kept in the yard show from the fist a less to:al yield of mik than those in the pisture. The comparison, however, is not based on total yield, but on the ability of each cow to maintain her daily average up to the amount she was giving at the begining of the test.

The figures in the column of averages of the above table shows the following facts that cows feed in the yard decreased in the flow of milk during entire period just three pounds on a general average of daily product, and that cows on pasture decreased four and a half ounces on general average during the entire period. Certainly not a bad showing for soiling.

The yard in which the cows were kept is a dry, straw yard devoid of shelter of any kind from storm or sun, and they were ill at ease under these conditions, while the cows at large in the pasture enjoyed the most perfect contentment. An examination of the individual records will be found interesting.

The millet was fed but for the one period. It was in full bloom at the time. The cows wasted it more than they did the green fodder. The fodder was sowed corn, and was coming in tassel when we began to feed it. There were several plots of it sowed at different times, so that it was not fed at all after it got beyond full tassel.

The green millet yielded at the rate of 12,800 pounds per acre, and the green sowed corn 34,000 pounds per acre.

The old system of pasturing is not consistent with an advanced and progressive agriculture, and the time is not far distant when nearly all the food of cattle will, in the State of Ohio, be cut and fed to them. It is perfectly safe to say that almost any farm within the borders of our State will carry twice as much stock if this latter plan was pursued. A general change from pasturing to soiling would double the gross receipts, and would add largely to the net income of many a stock and dairy farmer. To allow cattle to run at large over good meadow land is wasteful, and unthrifty and improvident. Half the number of acres will feed the same amount of stock, and keep them in better condition if the product be cut and placed before them.

Rye, orchard grass, clover, millet, sowed corn, sorghum, and other crops can be cheaply and profitably grown, for the purpose, and each fed in its

season.

With a good one horse mower and cart one man can easily cut and feed the daily ration of a herd of twenty head in an hour's time.

Fencing is one of the heaviest taxes the average Ohio farmer has to pay. It is mainly self-imposed, and in most cases needless, but it is the necessary consequence of a radically wrong system.

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