FOURTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 671 



land are doing: farm more intensively — farm better. Not only must we 

 guard against the habitual wastefulness by stuffing up all the leaks; 

 not only must we introduce all labor saving implements and four-horse 

 machinery to curtail the exorbitant wages; not only must we economize 

 and improve all along the line in the manner of seed — selection, cultiva- 

 tion, care of live stock, fertility of soil, etc., but we must likewise be 

 awake to the adaption of such new methods and systems as evolution in 

 progressive farming will from time to time advance. By this I do not 

 mean that we as farmers shall hastily grasp at every new-fangled scheme 

 sprung upon an unsuspecting community as though it were a genuine 

 gold brick, but adapt such changes as commend themselves to a careful 

 and unprejudiced judgment, and of such, I contend, is the silo on the 

 farm. 



DOES IT PAY? 



The first question in this, as in all enterprises, is, does It pay? If my 

 memory serves me right, we were told a year ago on this very platform 

 by State Dairy Commissioner Wright that where ordinarily on the farm 

 it required three acres to keep a milk cow, with a silo it required but 

 one. This statement in another form would mean, where you are keep- 

 ping thirty head of cattle now, with the aid of a silo you can keep ninety. 

 In other words, as soon as your silo is filled you can plow up two-thirds 

 of your meadows and pasture and plant it to potatoes or corn. Such are 

 the possibilities of the silo as presented to you by the best authority in 

 the state, and he certainly knows what he is talking about. Assuming 

 that his statements are correct in fact, can there be any doubt as to the 

 profitableness of the silo on the farm? Ensilage feeding has long passed 

 its experimental stage and nowhere in print or by word do we notice a 

 single word of objection raised to it, while all trials at experiment 

 stations give unqualified endorsement to the feeding of corn ensilage. 

 No one would deny the benefits of feeding beets to cattle in winter, yet 

 the government bulletin, No. 22, reports slightly better results from corn 

 silage than beets, say nothing of the far greater cost of producing beets. 

 All opposition and objections urged against silage feeding in its early 

 stages, and in a measure justified by the blunders committed by inex- 

 perience, as is the case with most ventures in their infancy, have grad- 

 ually been overcome and today the Borden Condensed Milk Company, 

 that once ruled out ensilage as an objectionable feed for its products, 

 issues pamphlets with instructions to its patrons how to build silos and 

 handle corn for the best results in silage feeding. The Kalamazoo Silo 

 and Tank Company, one of a half dozen concerns, has shipped 2,800 silos 

 to various parts of the United States, mostly to Wisconsin, Michigan, 

 Illinois and Minnesota, with a rapid increase in the demand. The silo by 

 virtue of its great merits is gradually working out its own salvation, 

 and this without any promoters to boom the introduction for financial 

 gain, for there is no patent on ensilage as there' is on stock foods. 



WHAT IS ENSILAGE? 



Ensilage or silage is corn, clover, grass, beets, or any green, succu- 

 lent crop cut up with an ordinary feed cutter and hoisted into an air 



