SHORTHORN BREEDERS' ASSOCIATION. 'l 1 -"i 



of the silo the rest of the tiiiic We have a little pasture, hut uot a ;,'real 

 deal. The e.xpeu.se of a hoop silo is imt very nuuh. Ours is built in the 

 center of a barn, and did not cost over .$ir)(). Wo built one 14x30 and 

 one IHxW this fall. The expense of l)uildinj: a silo that will hold one 

 hundred tons will not exceed .$l(Mi. !• or a silo that will hold :')li() tons 

 the cost will not be more than .">l.">(t. The oidy ditticulty with a larj^e 

 silo is that it makes necessary a larjre herd. You must have a herd 

 larj4:e enough to feed off oiu' layer of silage every day. especially in warn) 

 weather. A silo 20 feet in diameter and 4U feet deep has fed for us 

 a herd of tifty or sixty cattle for eight or nine months in tlie year. We 

 usually feed out of the silo from the tirst of Septeml)er mitil June. Oiu- 

 method of feeding is this: We run a corn Ijinder and cut the corn. 

 Sometimes we have bound it. sometimes we have not. If you don't bind 

 it you will save tlic twine, liut we think we .save enough labor handling 

 it to pay for the twine, so we now bind it. We begin to cut the corn 

 at the time it will make the best fodder. Get the ears as rijie as possible, 

 and still allow the leaves to retain enough (»f their succulence to be 

 palatalile to the cattle. This fall we were late in tilling one silo, niul tilled 

 the last of it from the shock, so had to put a good deal of water on it. 

 Even this is preferable to ordinary sluedded corn. We have tried various 

 stages, from the milk stage to the shock stage, and our experience has 

 shown that tiie best time to put it in the silo is when the corn is rcaily 

 for the shock. We cut the corn with a binder. We have three wagons 

 in the Held at a time, one nnin to each wagon and one man extra in 

 the tidd and one man to feed the machine, making a force which, with 

 the fuel and other expenses, costs us a 1 tout %'1T\ a day. Wc liavc tilled 

 the big silo in seven days. If we till it in that time the cost is about 

 sixty cents a ton. I think with a goid force and everything going well 

 the silage can be jiut into the silo for Hfty to sixty cents a ton on our 

 farm. iSonie men may do it chcaiter and some may make it cost inori'. 

 We hire everything done and i ay $1.r>0 a day for lal>or. (Jur lirst exiieri- 

 ence with silage was in fee<ling dairy i-attlc. We had the dairy herd 

 ^oaly a year .-ifter wc built the silo. We got very much better results and 

 got a hetter flow of milk, and our expenses for bran and otiier kinds of 

 feed were considerably less liy lliis inetliod of feeding tli.in ;iny other 

 We had eight or ten Shorthorns in our dairy lier<I. One of tliesc <ows I 

 bougiit at a sale on Mr. ('(toper's pi.ice. She w.is ten years old when 

 I Ixiught iier. a lie.ivy milker and very thin. We fed her everything we 

 could think of for a ye:ii' ami ;i li.ilf. and she did not get miicii falter. 

 The next ye.ar when we U'i\ her all the silage she could e.it she uot f.at 

 and is in good condition now at fourteen years old. She has brought a 

 calf every year :ind this ye.ir brought twins. I don't know whether lli.it 

 Is due to the silage <a- not. The exiterieiice in which peili.i|is wc are most 

 interested is in connection with the herd we h.ive .it present, .-iiid which 

 we bought two ye.iis ,igo. I liought a herd of lueiilv fi<iiii Mr. Unbliins. 



