Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1912 — Silo and Silage. [ARTICLE]

Silo and Silage.

The silo is here as an economical feed saver. You will find them across New York,‘along the Hudson, around the Adirondack mountains, all over the rock-ribbed hills of New England, down along the Atlantic Coast, away into Texas along the Rio Grande, and I 'have seen them along the Pacific coast of California. They have made it possible to keep four head of cattle where one was kept before. The same cattle are kept for less expense and in better flesh. Experience has taught the New England farmer to put as little grain in his silo as possible, but put in 0 stalk and grass weeds. Here is the reason. You take a grain ot corn out of your crib in winter and chew it, observe it is sweet, a fine food. Take a grain of corn out of your silo in the winter and chew it you will ' find it sour and full of acid. The sugar in the corn has turned to acid. So the farmer says feed dry grain to cattle that eat ensilage and you have good results. And raise a kind of corn that is almost all stalk and fill your silo with that.

While it is all right to ra'se the grain, yet keep it out of the silo if possible for the silo damages ripe grain, but it preserves the stalk and as a rule the stalk is destroyed. The economy of the silo is in canning up the frost-bitten corn, weedy corn and corn that is late and will never mature. ' The silo will preserve food from what would otherwise be lost and worthless. Square silos are a success. Smooth off and fill the corners so there is no corner on the inside. Any carpenter can build a square silo, costing about one-third as much as the commercial silo. Go to your lumber dealer and buy your material and build your own silo right In your own barn, or outside if you prefer. Make it square and any size you want. Cut off the inside corners, make, it air tight, and avoid the continuous door, as they are patented. You can have a silo of your own, you can build it yourself and you can save a lot of feed that would be lost.

Husk out four or five acres and feed it to the hogs or leave it laying on the ground, then run this In your silo and you will have forty or fifty tons of green feed in January, February and March and your cows will make you happy. Feed some dry feed or grain to sweeten up their stomachs and you will be surprised at the results. I’ve been in the square silos ini the month of February and the owners said they had no spoiled ensilage and had used the silos twelve years. And I see the thrifty New Englanders erecting the square silos this summer. Some build square silos with 2x4 the same as you see elevators. Others use heavy studding 2x6 on outside and use .only inch pine boards inside. AH that is necessary is to build it air tight and strong. Round silos fall down too readily in the summer time and cost twice as much as necessary.

EVERETT HALSTEAD.