296 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



course of a few years. It is something that is going to grow very slowly, 

 yet I want to say that it is the most economical way to provide feed for 

 your cows. The way we grow silage is by sowing it rather late and 

 planting it thickly. We use about fifty pounds of seed to the acre, 

 planting with a drill. Generally farmers want to grow ears on their 

 com and they say: "I don't want to put that much seed to the acre. 

 I would rather get some nubbins on my corn," and they sow a little thin- 

 ner. I do not think that that is the better way. An analysis of our 

 silage shows that a hundred weight of our fodder contains just as much 

 nutriment as a hundred weight of corn put in the silo that carries ears 

 and we get a larger crop from an acre than we do when it is planted in 

 the hill. But I would not depend at all on this fodder corn to provide 

 any of the grain ration. We plant it with the drill and plant it about 

 the middle of June. I think it would have to be planted a little earlier 

 here in Missouri. 



Mr. We plant the first of May here. 



Mr. Haecker — The corn does not develop as quickly here as it 

 does in Minnesota ; it takes it longer to reach that stage of maturity when 

 we have to cut it for the silo. While there are no ears developed, it has 

 reached the same maturity with the stalk as when it carries an ear — 

 is in the dough stage — only it has not an ear, because the stalks are 

 standing so thick in the field that it cannot have an ear. We generally 

 aim to prepare the silage at the usual time that it should be prepared for 

 corn and then give it the harrow. Before the seed is planted, the weed 

 seeds near the surface germinate and the harrow destroys them ; so if 

 you plant your corn about the middle or 20th of May you will have 

 already destroyed a good share of the weeds that are near enough to the 

 surface to grow that year. We do not harrow when the corn is planted 

 and before it is up, but we harrow while it is coming up and two or 

 three times after that, and possibly cultivate it once or twice and that 

 is all that is necessary to do with it. Then just before frost reaches 

 us we harvest it with an ordinary corn harvester. Either kind arc made 

 to do the work very satisfactorily with us. It is probably a little more 

 difficult here, because with you the stalks grow taller and are a little 

 stronger than with us, so you probably have a little more difficulty in 

 cutting it than we have. Why do we put it in the silo? Because by 

 putting it in the silo we practically save every bit of it, as no silage will 

 spoil around the edges; and we begin feeding as soon as we put it in. 

 While we do it that way, it is not necessary for you to put it in a silo. 

 Yiou can put it into large shocks and harvest it and feed it that way. 

 While you feed it dry, it is necessary that you sow it as thickly as I 



