228 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Joseph E. Gould told the Ontario dairymen that "It does not pay 

 to keep cows walking up and down the field looking for pasture, and 

 tramping it down at the same time. I can supply feed at less cost in 

 other ways. Silage is the basis of my feeding. I have only twelve acres 

 of pasture on the whole place (110 acres). I consider it much cheaper 

 to grow corn for feeding than to have cows wandering about the pasture 

 field. I have thirty-one cows and fed silage 351 days last year." Any 

 dairyman with silos can tell the same story. 



Does the dairyman get a silo because he is rich, or does the silo 

 make him rich? 



I have made no effort to go into detailed description of the silo, or 

 give the capacity, cost of construction or filling. The cost will vary with 

 local conditions and any one interested will get. books on the subject. 

 There are many methods of construction and destruction, use and abuse, 

 all of which the authorities will tell you. All I care to say is, if you 

 build, build right. Don't be reckless or penurious. 



The silo has been a blessing to many a man; it will be the same to 

 you, whether you are dairyman or stockman, whether you raise cattle, 

 sheep, hogs or poultry. 



SILO EXPERIENCE. 



F. D. Pierce in Wallaces' Farmer. 



In 1887 I commenced farming in Iowa. My first purchase was 240 

 acres of land within a short distance of town. In 1890 I bought another 

 250-acre farm adjoining the first. From the first I realized that one of 

 the chief problems for the Iowa farm to solve was how to get the most 

 out of the corn crop. It was evident to me that to leave the large amount 

 of animal food contained in the stalks of the corn in the field to bleach 

 and wither was a great waste and one no up-to-date farmer would permit. 

 Consequently I began to try the different methods then in vogue of utiliz- 

 ing this part of the corn plant, and of all those methods none of them 

 were satisfactory until I came to the silo. 



The great drouth of 1894 was what finally brought me to the point 

 of building my first silo. I had a large stock, among them some forty 

 cows from which I was making butter to supply a trade in town, and how 

 to get them through the winter without considerably augmenting the 

 amount of feed then growing upon the farm I did not know unless a silo 

 would help me out. Consequently I ordered a No. 16 Smalley ensilage 

 cutter after having disposed of an old one I had been using for cutting- 

 dry fodder, and set the carpenters to work to build by first silo. This 

 was a box 16 feet square in one side of my basement barn extending from 

 the ground to the roof, a height of 30 feet. I had barely commenced work 

 when I was called to the Pacific coast by the illness of a daughter and 

 did not return until the box was finished ready for filling. The workmen. 



