THE SILO. 43e 



clover or cow pea, as these feeds contain the protein so essential to 

 economical feeding. Mr. J. M. Turner of Michigan says, "Of late 

 years we have annually put up 3,200 tons of corn ensilage, and this 

 has been the principal ration of all the live stock at Springdale farm, 

 our Shropshire sheep having been maintained on a ration of ensilage 

 night and morning, coupled with a small ration of clover hay in the 

 middle of the day." 



To Swine.— As a food for swine there is some conflict of opinion. 

 Some feeders, including the writer, have fed it with very indifferent 

 success, while others make a practice of feeding it and claim that in 

 small quantities it substitutes pasture and keeps the swine in better 

 thrift than when fed slop and grains without the succulent adjunct. 

 Mr. J. W. Pierce of Indiana writes on this subject : "We have fed our 

 sows, about 25 in number, for four winters, equal parts of ensilage and 

 corn meal put into a cooker and brought up to the steaming state. It 

 has proved very beneficial to them. It keeps up the flow of milk of 

 the sows that are nursing the young, equal to when they are running on 

 clover. We find, too, that when the pigs are farrowed they become more 

 robust, and take to nursing much sooner and better than they did in 

 winters when fed on an exclusively dry diet. We also fed it to our 

 sheep. To sixty head we put out about six bushels of ensilage." That 

 a pig should eat silage is no more than we should expect from an 

 animal that feeds on pasture grass as well as hogs do. 



To Poultry.— VouMry in winter crave green food. Some poultry 

 farmers provide cabbages, others crushed roots, but there is a strong 

 tendency now to provide a silage made of tender clover and green sweet 

 corn. A poultry man writes as follows in "Orange Judd Farmer:" 

 "Clover and corn ensilage is one of the best winter foods for poultry 

 raisers. Let me tell you how to build four silos for $1. Buy four 

 coal oil barrels at the drug store, burn them out on the inside, and 

 take the heads out. Go to the clover field when the second crop of 

 the small June clover is in bloom, and cut one-half ton three-eighths of 

 an inch in length, also one-half ton of sweet corn, and run this through 

 the feed cutter. Put into the barrel a layer of clover, then a layer of 

 corn. Having done this, take a common building jack-screw and press the 

 silage down as firmly as possible. Then put on this a very light sprinkling 

 of pulverized charcoal, and keep on putting in clover and corn until 

 you get the barrel as full as will admit the cover being put back. After 

 the four-barrel silos are filled, roll them out beside the barn and cover 

 them with horse manure, allowing them to remain there thirty days. 

 Then put them away, covering with cut straw or hay. When the cold, 

 chilling winds of December come, open one of these 'poultrymen's silos,' 



