758 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



sucli 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 unsu- 

 specting community as though it was a genuine gold brick, but adapt 

 s uohchanges as command themselves to a careful and unpreducjiceded 

 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 requires but 

 one. This statement in another form would mean, where 

 you are keeping 30 head of cattle, now, with the aid of a silo you can 

 keep 90. 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 no where 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 — 

 silage. No one would deny the benefits of feeding beets to cattle in win- 

 ter, yet the Government Bulletine No. 22 reports slightly better results 

 from corn — silage than beets say nothing of the far greater cost of pro- 

 ducing beets. All opposition and objections urged against silage feed'ing 

 in its early stages, and in a measure justified by the blunders committed 

 by unexperienced as is tiie case with most ventures in their infancy, have 

 gradually been over come today the Borden Condensed Milk Co. that 

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

 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 Co. one of a half dozen concerns has shipped 2800 Silos to var- 

 ious parts of U. S. mostly to Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota, 

 with a rapid increase in the demand. The silo by virture of its great 

 merits is gradually working out its own salvation and this without any 

 promoters to boom its introduction for financial gain, for their is no 

 patent on ensilage as there is on stockfoods. 



WHAT IS ENSILAGE? 



\ 

 Ensilage or Silage is corn, clover, grass, beets or any greens succulent 



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

 called a silo, where it will heat up to 180 degrees, ferment and produce 

 carbonic acid gas, which with the exclusion of oxygen will preserve the 

 green feed indefinitely. It comes out, moist, slightly discolored with a 

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



