SEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART X. 643 



Some of our new subscribers may ask: What is silage, anyhow? It is 

 simply canned corn fodder, corn and all. If this does not quite convey 

 the idea we will say: It is simply cattle "kraut" made of corn. It is 

 made by running the corn plant when at its best or about the time 

 you would cut it up for shredding, through a cutting machine, cutting it 

 in small pieces, ears and all, and then putting it in a tub with neither 

 top nor bottom, but resting on a cement foundation. The weight of the 

 silage excludes the air, and the heat developed kills every form of microbic 

 life. Hence it keeps just as canned corn or any other green stuff. The 

 great heat and moisture penetrates every particle of it and there is very 

 little waste. 



Silage for dairy cows has long passed the experimental stage. There 

 is no more risk in putting up a silo properly, and filling it with corn, than 

 there is in buying one of the best up-to-date plows, mowers or reapers. 



IS FARM I^AND IN IOWA AT PRESENT PRICES A GOOD INVEST- 

 MENT. 



E. G. Preston. Battle Creek. Iowa. Before Ida Comity Farmers' Institute. 



To answer this question would require a great deal of business fore- 

 sight and keen judgment. Upon inquiry we will receive from men who 

 have money to invest various answers, these answers depending upon the 

 point of view of the investor. 



In the first place we will all agree that a good investment must be a 

 safe one, must return a good rate of interest or income and, further, 

 one that consists of salable property, that which can be sold at any 

 time and realize a cash value therefor. Now land in our county is re- 

 garded by nearly all as a safe invesitment and under present conditions 

 land in Ida county is very salable property, so the question will therefore 

 depend upon the rate of interest or income to be derived from an in- 

 vestment in farm land. 



First let us look at it from the standpoint of the land speculator. As 

 he looks over our lands he finds values placed from $90 to $100 per acre 

 for most of the good farms and he is told these farms will rent for from 

 $3 to $4 per acre. He also investigates as to the possibility of our land 

 increasing in value. In answer to this our best informed men believe Ida 

 county lands will advance in value and that the $100 mark is not the 

 limit, but they are conservative as to what the advance will be, believing 

 it will depend on the crop conditions in the future and trend of the 

 times. Now it does not take our speculator friend long to figure $100 

 land renting for $3.50 with taxes 50 cents and keeping up of improve- 

 ments at from 20 to 25 cents per acre, will return an income of three or 

 less than three per cent per year. He decides it is too low and usually 

 goes out to our newer lands where there is a greater chance of land ap- 

 preciating in value. 



Again from the standpoint of the average renter who has not suffi- 

 cient capital to own a farm of our high priced land, he answers it is 

 cheaper to rent at $3 or $4 per acre than to own and pay at the rate of 



