The dairyman who buys all his feed has but little margin. To raise enough clover calls for considerable land. Alfalfa will yield a large bulk of excellent feed from a few acres of well treated land. For profit he must raise more feedstuff and buy less. The Kansas station reported that with common scrub cows fed on alfalfa hay and Kafir corn meal it was possible to produce butterfat at a cost of seven cents a pound.
SOME MILKING TEST VALUATIONS
The New Jersey station as a result of a very painstaking milking test reported: (1) In a ration where alfalfa hay was tested against wheat bran and dried brewers’ grain the saving in the cost of milk was 12.7 cents per hundred, and 2.3 cents per pound of butter when alfalfa hay was used. This saving means a great deal when it is considered that the alfalfa is raised and not purchased. (2) That the milk value of one acre of alfalfa was $74.
A Kansas dairyman is reported to have kept ten cows through one summer on the alfalfa cut daily from a patch containing four square rods less than two acres.
Some dairymen believe that there is a great saving in the alfalfa hay by cutting it into two-inch lengths, and feeding it dry. It is also believed that it will always be a matter of economy to feed with the alfalfa, green or as hay, a small ration of carbonaceous food, even corn-stover serving such a purpose.
Former Governor Hoard, editor of Hoard’s Dairyman, says that with alfalfa hay at $10 and bran at $20 per ton there is a saving, by using alfalfa, of $2.80 for every 100 pounds of butter made, and a saving of 19.8 cents for every 100 pounds of milk.
In a section of New York where alfalfa has been quite generally introduced, dairymen claim an increase in their profits of 15 to 30 per cent by its use, besides the enrichment of their farms for other crops.
Prof. D. H. Otis, telling of experiments with the dairy herd at the Kansas agricultural college, states that, “it is usually recommended to feed a cow all the rough feed she will eat, and then balance up the ration with grain. The experience at the college indicates that much rough feed is wasted in careless feeding. The cow will eat the best first, and, if given too much, will pick the most desirable morsels, leaving what might be called passably good, which too frequently is treated as waste and thrown under foot. No more hay should be given an animal than it will eat up clean. This refers to first-class quality, however, as a cow could not be expected to eat poor hay clean.
“In feeding the rough feeds, the following table has been used by the college as a guide:
| Roughness.—Value per ton when alfalfais worth $1.00 per ton | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feed | Total nutrients | Protein nutrients | Feed | Total nutrients | Protein nutrients | ||||
| Dry Roughness | Green roughness | ||||||||
| Alfalfa | $1 | .00 | $1 | .00 | Alfalfa | $0 | .34 | $0 | .37 |
| Corn-fodder | .32 | .19 | Corn silage | .13 | .12 | ||||
| Cowpeas | .97 | 1 | .02 | Fodder corn | .14 | .09 | |||
| Fodder Corn | .40 | .24 | Pasture grasses | .03 | .24 | ||||
| Millet | .64 | .42 | Sorghum fodder | .12 | .06 | ||||
| Oat hay | .59 | .41 | Soy-beans | .28 | .30 | ||||
| Oat straw | .33 | .15 | Roots and Tubers | ||||||
| Orchard-grass | .60 | .45 | |||||||
| Prairie hay | .51 | .33 | Mangels | .10 | .09 | ||||
| Red clover | .70 | .64 | Sugar-beets | .14 | .10 | ||||
| Sorghum | .43 | .23 | Turnips | .11 | .08 | ||||
| Soy-beans | .98 | 1 | .02 | ||||||
| Mixed hay | .67 | .56 | |||||||
| Timothy | .47 | .27 | |||||||
| Wheat straw | .25 | .08 | |||||||