VALUE OF SILAGE.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 July 1930, Page 23

VALUE OF SILAGE.

PUTS BLOOM ON CATTLE. I was talking, states a writer in the Napier Telegraph, to a Hawke s Bay dairyfarmer this week who is one o the most enthusiastic advocates of silage feeding that 1 have ever had the pleasure of meeting. He stated that silage had come to the rescue this season in a wonderful fashion and while his pasturelands were almost as bare, as the provei bial billiard table, his dairy herd were all in good condition as a result of the feeding of silage. He has a property of 100 acres and this last season he put the cut off 40 acres into silage. He has only been feedin" silage for a few seasons and states” that when first he commenced to feed it, the cows would have nothing to do with it. Once, however, they had acquired the taste for silage they would not look at hay when .it was around. He also feeds it in limited quantities to his breeding sows, with beneficial results. Last year he subjected a bull wlucli ho was exhibiting at the Hawke's Bay Show to a course of silage feeding during the winter months and when he exhibited the beast, other farmers exhibiting would not believe that it had not been rugged, so perfect was the condition of its coat. One of the most marked features of silage feeding to cattle from his observations was the wonderful bloom which it put on cattle. Even this winter his stoek were all in wonderful condition. A large number of those Hawke s Bay farmers who are going in for. silage are, from economic motives, going in for the stack method of conservation as involving no outlay in comparison .to the cost of constructing a concrete silo. At the same time the stack method, allows of a great deal of wastage and 1 feel sure that on freehold properties the construction of a concrete silo would in the course of a few seasons amply repay the farmer for the initial outlay. Silage is coming into its own in Hawke’s°Bay, and its value is becoming recognised more and more by the farming community. Not only is it of immense value in controlling and managing pastures, but it also permits of truer economy in .better provision both for the dairy cow and the breeding ewe. One pound of grass ensilage is the equal of 21bs. of roots and 2flbs. of ensilage equal a pound of the best hay.