23 



cured fodder or hay will insure liiui against excessive loss as the result 

 of drought or of the rotting of the natural pasture grasses through 

 autumnal or winter rains. 



STACK STLAGE. 



Tlie practice of making good hay from alfalfa, cowpeas, Johnson 

 grass, the sorghums, and other coarse or succulent plants is often 

 attended with much difficulty, and the product varies in qnality and 

 value according to treatment. Successful hay making requires con- 

 siderable experience, besides taking time and a large force of laborers, 

 so that the expense of preparing a cured crop often amounts to very 

 nearly its feeding value. The fact that it recjuires a number of men 

 will sometimes prevent cattle owners from trying to put up any hay. 

 The desirability of having a quantity of green, or at least succulent, 

 feed during times of drought and during late winter and early spring 

 months is well recognized. In the farmiug districts that want may be 

 supi)lied by the cultivation of soiling crops, root crops, and by putting 

 up silage, the latter prepared in strongly built silos. The cost of 

 building a silo precludes its use by the majority of farmers and stock 

 owners, especially in the more sparsely settled districts and in the arid 

 and semiarid portions of the Southwest, where lumber and labor are 

 high priced. Fodder and hay are very desirable, but they must be 

 cheap and easily prepared else they will not be used. Stack silage or 

 oi)en-air silage is extensively used in portions of Australia, South 

 Africa, and northwest India, where the general conditions as to fer- 

 tility of the soil, rainfall, and climate are about the same as in Texas 

 and the Southwest. 



It is claimed that the value of stack silage was first discovered about 

 1867, when a New Zealand farmei- whose haying operations were inter- 

 rupted by heavy rains, raked the green, freshly cut grass into a great 

 pile, his idea being to save the, as he supposed, rotten mass for fer- 

 tilizing purposes during the coming season. Instead of the grass rot- 

 ting a fermentation took place and the product was eaten greedily by 

 stock which were turned into the field during the winter. Whatever 

 may be the source of the practice, the fact remains that stack silage 

 finds a very wide use in hot countries among stock farmers and men 

 whose means do not permit them to j)urchase silage cutters and build 

 silos. 



The theory of making silage is to pack the green forage into a com- 

 pact mass, thus preventing the entrance of air into the material. The 

 green mass undergoes a sufficient fermentation to partially cook and 

 preserve it. In building a silo the walls are constructed of heavy tim- 

 bers, braced and covered both inside and out with sheathing, tar paper, 

 and matched boards, made as nearly as possible air-tight, for it has 

 been found that wherever air penetrates into the mass or the fermen- 

 tation is carried too far the silage becomes moldy, producing an indi- 



