There is no

in the latter part of September and all through October and November. food that will pay better for the money and the trouble it takes to cultivate it, than rape. For milk production the same thing applies. I do not want to recommend it too strongly for use with dairy cows, but a few farmers in our district have been using it for that purpose, and declare that they have never fed any forage plant that could compare with it as an economical milk producer. I have found that turnips have given better results in milk production than mangels, but there is a danger of their giving an objectionable flavor to the milk.

Prof. W. J. Spillman: Any of the ordinary crops which affect milk may be fed with impunity if they are fed to the cow immediately after you get through milking; but you must not feed them within eight hours previous to milking. If turnips are fed within a few hours of milking, they will flavor the milk, but you can feed all the turnips you want to if you feed immediately after milk ing.

Mr. Grisdale; Dried sugar beet pulp is a product which is now being placed upon the market in this country, and demands attention. It contains a high per cent. of dry matter, and to it is added about forty per cent of dry molasses. It makes a very palatable food, and seems to agree with the cattle and has a good effect on their appetites and digestive organs. We have been able to feed eight pounds per day without any injurious effects. It costs $10 to $12 per ton. Molasses is also fed in liquid form, but one has to be careful not to feed too much.

In the concentrated foods, Prof. Day mentioned gluten meai and gluten feed, and pointed out how much these foods varied in their constituents. In Eastern Canada we have the real gluten meal. The average gluten food from Ontario tests only 34 to 36 per cent. protein, and contains the hulls, or the bran, and the sweepings. We have fed gluten meal very extensively, and I may say that I think it should be used more extensively, only I am afraid that if so used the price would likely be raised. A few years ago it could be purchased at $10 per ton-to-day it is $25.

This raises a point that is worth discussion, and that is the importance of knowing exactly the contents of these by-products, such as gluten meal, oat dust, oat hulls, etc. Each manufacturer of these by-products should be required by the Government to place upon the sacks containing the foods, an analysis of the contents, just as is required in the case of plant foods, which we never think of buying without knowing what they contain. It would cost a little, but the cost would be as nothing in comparison with the good that would result from being able to select that food which is most easily digested and is the richest in the elements of animal food.

Q. How does corn bran compare with wheat bran?

:

Mr. Grisdale: It is not nearly so rich in protein or in carbo-hydrates.

Prof. Day: In the case of the blood meal and tankage, I forgot to mention that it is guaranteed to contain 60 per cent. protein for tankage and 87 per cent. protein for blood meal, so that the purchaser knows exactly what it contains.

Prof. W. J. Spillman: I wish to emphasize one point the last speaker made, and that is as to the importance of alfalfa. It is a new crop in this section and in the Eastern States, but it has always been the leading hay crop in the Western States. There was 2,000,000 acres of alfalfa grown in 1899. Since then the area has been much increased, and in the Eastern States we have begun to think that it is the most important hay crop we can grow. I am not surprised to learn that you can grow it here. because it grows readily in Michigan and Wisconsin, which are farther north. In Onondaga County, N.Y., alfalfa has been the standard hay crop for fifty years.

As to the best ways of utilizing that crop, I may say that it is essentially a hay crop. It will give three crops a year, and when once well established on land fairly free from weed seed, it is good for a long time, unless you should happen to have

a very unusual winter to kill it out. There is a field in Onondaga which is said to have been sown 42 years ago, and still has a pretty fair stand of alfalfa. In no way will t yield a larger return than as a pasture for hogs. A great many of the farmers in country are doing this. and are making very large returns. I know one who kept ten head of hogs to the acre of alfalfa, and they were not able to keep it down, and he cut it for hay once, and got a ton to the acre. It is possible to grow good large hogs on alfalfa without any other food, but the best results have been obtained from feeding a small amount of some other food along with it, such as corn. I would feed about two ears per day to hogs pastured on alfalfa. In our country we can produce hogs at less than three cents live weight on alfalfa and corn.

I want to urge the importance of another point suggested. and that is of having some way of knowing the composition of these meal products. Every year they become more and more important as feeding stuffs, for the reason that manufacture is on the increase, and these by-products are becoming more plentiful and more numerous in variety. Almost every year sees a new kind put upon the market. They vary a great deal. Some millers in our country, and I assume it is the same here, add the bran and the dust from the floor sweepings, saying that dust is one of the by-products. A number of our State Governments require that these products be guaranteed; that is, there must be placed on every package a tag showing the composition, which they guarantee. It is an excellent law, and might well, I think, be adopted here.

Mr. W. P. Gamble, B.S.A.: In analyzing these by-products. we have found that they vary very widely in composition. We obtained a sample of oat dust from a mill, and found it contained 8.12 per cent. protein and 37 per cent. fat. A year later we took a second sample from the same mill, and found it contained 12 per cent. protein and 2.99 per cent. fat. The same variation occurs in the case of oat hulls, gluten meal, and other products of a similar nature.

Many stock foods contain high percentages of ash, which is largely the potassium salts, which are not valuable constituents and are hard on the excretory organs, and it is therefore not desirable to feed such foods to any great extent.

Mr. de Coriolis: Reference has been made to sugar beet pulp. This pulp used to go out from the factory containing 90 per cent water, and with such a large amount of water, the cost of transportation was too high in proportion to the value of the feed. This year, however, one factory has installed a drying plant. which has reduced the moisture to three per cent. The composition of the pulp is then as follows:

It is rather high in fibre and low in ether extract, and the manufacturers thought of improving it by having the pulp absorb crude molasses. It then has the following composition:

This is a great improvement. The reason I bring this to the attention of the meeting is that there is a large amount of this pulp being produced. There are four sugar factories working in Ontario, which, combin ed, will use 100,000 tons of beets each season, and half of that amount will go out as pulp with ninety per cent. of moisture. If all this pulp were dried, the output would still be very large, and would have to find a market, and it is important to know its composition and its value as a cattle food. 4 E. U.

We have not made any experiments as yet as to the digestibility of this food, and it will be necessary for us to do so before we can make any definite statement as to its value.

Prof. W. J. Spillman: I am very greatly interested in what I have learned about pulp. It has been fed extensively in our country, and with great satisfaction. Unfortunately, our factory men have refused to put in drying plants, with one exception in Michigan, and most of the feeding has been done with wet pulp. I hope all your factories will put in driers. There will be no difficulty in disposing of the pulp if it is dried and molasses added to it, provided it is advertised.

Mr. J. E. Brethour: In reference to artichokes as pig food, I have given this matter some attention, and am pleased to say that this root forms a very desirable vegetable food for hogs. It is a richer food than the potato, and gives better results. One great advantage with this crop is that it may be planted at a leisure season in the fall. It will then come up early in the spring, and can be fed the following fall. What roots are left in the fall will not spoil, but may be fed in the spring. There is therefore no trouble with storage, which entails a great deal of work. They are also valuable in keeping animals healthy, as they get exercise in searching for the roots. Some grain food should be fed in conjunction with them. The system of growing is similar to growing potatoes. They are planted in drills fourteen to eighteen inches apart, and cultivated on the flat. If thev are not fed too closely. it is not necessary to plant a second time. The second season we plow the ground and work it on top, then leave it till the roots sprout, and as soon as we can see them in the field, we cultivate them out in rows. It is an economical way of furnishing a bulky food. I am informed by people who have tested them that they will yield from one thousand to twelve hundred bushels per acre, and, if that is the case, I am sure there is no more valuable food. Q. What sort do you use?

Mr. Brethour: The white artichoke.

Q. What time in the fall do you plant?

Mr. Brethour: Any time after October, so as to remove any danger of sprouting, and cultivate the first thing in the spring.

Q. How much seed to the acre?

Mr. Brethour: About 25 bushels.

Q. Do you cut them?

Mr. Brethour: No; we have never gone to that trouble.

Q. Where can you secure the seed?

Mr. Brethour: I secured mine from a man who was growing them near me. Prof. Spillman: With reference to alfalfa, it is very dangerous to pasture cattle or sheep upon alfalfa alone, as they are subject to bloat. Sometimes cattle will refuse to eat it at first, but they soon get used to it.

Prof. Zavitz: I have known of two or three instances in Ontario where cattle died from pasturing on alfalfa alone, but where it was sown with a mixture of grasses I have not known of such cases.

Prof. Spillman: Some farmers in Ohio sow it with brome grass and clover. It is an excellent mixture, and with it the danger of bloating is extremely small. If wheat straw stacks are available, the danger is reduced to nothing, as the cattle will eat the alfalfa for two or three hours and then eat the straw.

Prof. Grisdale: We are growing it pure and mixed, and I think it is quite possible to grow it profitably in a rotation where there is only two years in hay. The crop is very much greater than we could get from the common red clover, so much so that it more than pays for extra cost of seed.

ANALYSES OF BY-PRODUCTS.

Mr. Henry Glendinning, Manilla, opened a discussion on the analysis of by-products: I think the time has come when the Union should memorialize the Government at Ottawa to pass a law compelling the manufacturers of by-products, such as gluten meal, and other feeding stuffs, to place upon each package a certificate of the chemical contents. I would, therefore, move the following resolution: "That this Experimental Union memorialize the Dominion Government to enact a law that the manufacturers of all by-products used as feeding stuffs for live stock, such as bran, oil cake, gluten meal, etc., be compelled to place upon the package the analysis of the same, showing the protein, carbohydrates, and ether extract the food contains, and that the same be guaranteed."

The resolution was seconded by Mr. T. G. Raynor.

A Member: In Wisconsin the State sends out men to take samples of these products, which are analyzed, and a bulletin published giving information as to what they contain, so that the farmer knows just how the State analyses compare with the guarantee given by the manufacturer. Would it not be wise to adopt some such provision here?

Mr. Glendinning: I hardly think it would be necessary, providing we had a law requiring the contents to be given. Samples could then be taken from the packages and sent to Ottawa, where they could be analysed to see if they came up to the standard. Mr. Robt. Thompson: I think that bran should be left out of the resolution, as there would then be more hope of having it put into effect.

Prof. W. J. Spillman, Washington, D. C.: In our country the farmers need a law in reference to bran as much as they do anything, because it is very grossly and frequently adulterated. In our country such laws apply to bran, and protect the farmers greatly.

Mr. Glendinning: It is hard to tell what a great deal of the bran you buy consists of. It appears to contain a great deal of dirt and foreign material, such as the sweepings of the mill.

The resolution on being voted upon was carried.

GRASSES AND CLOVERS FOR HAY AND FOR PASTURE.

By Prof. W. J. Spillman, Agrostologist, Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. What I shall have to say will be confined largely to the grasses of the United States, because I am not familiar with the conditions in Ontario, except what I infer from the conditions in the States similarly situated across the line. I know what must be the conditions here from what the conditions are in Wisconsin. That State, per

haps, comes more nearly duplicating the con itions here than does any other State in the Union.

In the United States we have 414,000,000 acres of improved land, and of that, 125.000,000 acres is devoted to permanent pasture; that is to say, it is not plowed land. We have 219,000,000 acres of plowed land, from which crops are actually harvested. That gives you some idea of the relative importance of permanent pasture and plowed land. Of the plowed land, 61,000,000 acres is devoted to hay crops. More than three-quarters of the grass land, principally the hay land, is in those States which are contiguous to the Province of Ontario, at least to Canada-north of the Ohio River and east of Nebraska and the Dakotas, so that nearly all the grass is grown in a corner of our country touching on this part of Canada. I infer from that that the proportion of land devoted to grass in Ontario is larger than in the United States, taken as a whole.

A few words regarding the varieties that constitute the 61,000,000 acres. I may say that in the United States we have over 15,000,000 acres of wild grasses, which are of use for hay. They are included in the acreage given. That leaves 46,000,000 acres of tame hay, which includes 4,000,000 acres of fodder crops. There are 31,000,000 acres of timothy out of the 46,000,000 acres, or mixtures in which timothy is the leading constituent. Next to timothy comes red clover, with 4,000,000 acres. The 31,000,000 acres includes

all mixtures in which timothy is found, and most of the clover is sown with timothy, but there are 4,000,000 acres of clover sown without any admixture, all sown north of the Ohio River and east of Nebraska.

In addition to the clovers, we have four million acres of crops that our census takers designate as fodder crops, including sor ghum cut for feed, Kaffir corn cut for fodder, and maize when cut for silage or soiling purposes. On the Pacific coast a lot of wheat when found to be mixed with, wild oa ts is cut for hay, and in every State of the Union more or less of the oat crop is cut for the same purpose. All told, about 3.000,000 acres of grain are cut annually for hay. There were 2,404.000 tons of alfalfa hay cut in 1899; I imagine the area is double that now, as there has been an enormous increase. In Dallas, Texas, from which town most of the alfalfa seed sown in Northern Texas is supplied, no less than 500,000 lbs. of alfalfa seed were sold last year, which is considerably more than is generally sold for like areas, but it is only an indication of what has been taking place over the eastern half of the United States. The farmers are just as much interested in alfalfa there as they are in California.

Alfalfa is a plant to which I have given more attention during the past year than to all the other hay crops put together. It is not a pasture plant; it does not stand pasturing very well, and is easily killed off by pasturing. It is a very dangerous thing to pasture cattle and sheep upon it in most regions. In the irrigated region of the west, it is almost the only hay crop, and I know of at least one farm that yields eight and a half tons per acre.

Q: How many cuttings?

they have.

Prof. Spillman: From three to four a year. In southern California they get from six to nine crops, according to the amount of water It is not a pasture plant, except for hogs, and it is the best hog pasture I know of. Col. R. E. Smith of Texas, who grew 800 acres of alfalfa last year, is pasturing hogs on it, and getting results that I will not tell you about, because I have already told you too many improbable stories.

As to the soil on which it will grow It will not grow on heavy clay land, unless it is in very dry seasons; it will drown out. It will not grow where its feet are kept

wet.

A Member: There is a section of Ontario, namely. in Brant and Haldimand, where alfalfa is most successfully grown, and yet the soil is an extremely heavy clay; but it is a dry subsoil.

Prof. Spillman: Perhaps you and I would differ about what a heavy clay soil is. If it thrives well on that soil, I am certain that it is not, strictly speaking, a heavy clay soil. It will grow on any soil that has an open, porous subsoil, free from standing water at all times of the year.

Q. Is it true that a certain bacteria has to be introduced in order to get the best results?

Prof. Spillman: Yes; it is a leguminous plant; it produces its seed in a two-valve pod like a pea pod, which is a characteristic of all these plants, including beans, peas, clovers, and Soy beans. All these have certain parasitic bacilli on their roots, which give rise to the formation of warts on the roots. You will find the roots of the ordinary garden pea covered with these. On red clover they are twice as large as an