672 IOWA DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE 



tight tank called a silo, where it will heat up to 180 degrees, ferment 

 and produce carbonic acid, which, with the exclusion of oxygen, will pre- 

 serve the green feed indefinitely. It conies out moist, slightly discolored, 

 with a sweet-sour taste and odor and often warm. It has been known to 

 keep seven years in this condition without spoiling. I have myself fed 

 ensilage three years old which was perfectly preserved. Corn silage 

 is greatly relished by all farm animals, including hogs, sheep and 

 poultry. Although a rich, succulent and palatable feed that goes well 

 with, and greatly helps, the perfect assimilation and digestion of other 

 farm feeds, corn silage is not a well balanced feed in itself and should 

 not be fed exclusively, being too long in carbohydrates and too short in 

 protein. Its protein contents are only 2V5 per cent, about half of what 

 green clover and blue grass represents. Nevertheless, the importance of 

 the natural juices in the digestive functions and health of the farm ani- 

 mals can never be satisfactorily demonstrated by laboratory analysis. We 

 all know as farmers by experience how grass will put life and gloss 

 and health to our cattle; how it will round out and make a hog of the 

 runt that was too measly to go with a fat lot. Just as vegetables, fruits, 

 and so-called condimental foods are indispensable for the health of the 

 human family, so are they likewise necessary for the thrift of live 

 stock, that are often carried six months in the year on dry feed. This 

 is a severe test for animals that are naturally ruminants and habitually 

 browse on juicy feed; no wonder they emerge from this ordeal and this 

 period of badly balanced rations, as wrecks of their former selves, thin 

 in flesh, rough in hair, scrambling for the first green blades of grass. 

 The silo will in a great measure counteract this great deficiency of the 

 dry food season and it forms the connecting link between the end and 

 beginning of the grass period. Moreover, there will be less trouble in 

 the cow stable at calving time, less abortion, less of such difficulties as 

 befall animals that are out of condition. 



CLOVER vs. ENSILAGE. 



You will answer that clover hay will remedy all these troubles, I ad- 

 mit the great advantages of clover hay to balance up corn and to promote 

 the general health of live stock, but there are serious obstacles in tlie 

 way of a clover hay crop not common to a silage crop. In this latitude 

 only one year in three can be put down as a clover year, not always can 

 we get a perfect stand, nor is the weather always settled in June to cure it 

 in the best shape. Nevertheless, in the face of all these difficulties, we are 

 justified in using our extreme efforts to secure a crop of clover, and if 

 possible have storage capacity enough to let the year of plenty carry us 

 over the year of shortage. With clover hay added to ensilage and corn, 

 we are placed in possession of a variety and kind of feed that will place 

 all farm animals in prime condition of health and thrift. The question 

 should not be ensilage or clover, but ensilage and clover. 



WASTE OF COKN CROP. 



I have spoken against waste on the farm. It is now a pretty well 

 settled fact, that of the total nourishment at one time represented in the 

 corn plant only 60 per cent is utilized by confining ourselves to the ear 



