280 IOWA DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 



much larger percentage of the crop can be saved than by any other 

 method and its value is still further enhanced by the succulent condition 

 in which it is placed before the animal consumes it. With dairy cows, of 

 which we keep between fifty and sixty, we know of nothing that will take 

 its place. With it the flow of milk is larger, the cows' coats are better, 

 they shed earlier and come out in better condition in the spring than 

 with any other food we have ever used. Nor are results any more favor- 

 able with cows than with young stock. We begin to feed it to our calves 

 as soon as they will eat, and that is as soon, if not a little sooner, than 

 they will eat any other kind of roughage, and we continue to feed it to 

 them until they are sold or our supply runs out. Last winter we carried 

 through something like fifty head very largely on ensilage and we never 

 had young cattle do as well without feeding much more grain than this 

 bunch received. Aside from these advantages there is the fact that when 

 a field of corn is once in the silo there is nothing else to be done with 

 it but to shovel it out to the cattle, a much easier and pleasanter task 

 than placing the crop before them in any other form. Then, to, the field 

 is cleared early in the season and can be plowed and sown to any other 

 grain or any other thing done with it that one desires. 



As to the cost of siloing as compared with other methods of harvest- 

 ing the crop the difference is not so great as one would think. With 

 seven men and eleven horses we can put up from six to eight acres per 

 day, which is about as fast as it can be harvested in any other way. With 

 a smaller machine than ours less help would be required and a corre- 

 spondingly smaller amount of work can be done. We keep a man in the 

 silo to spread and tramp the corn (which, by the way, we find very essen- 

 tial), and one man to feed the machine, a man in the field with the corn 

 harvester and as many teams and wagons, with one man to a team, as is 

 necessary to keep the machine going. We use low truck wagons with the 

 bed of a hayrack, and the man handling the team can pile on as much 

 as the team will haul without anyone to load. We think we save money 

 by binding the corn instead of handling it loose. The man with the team, 

 by keeping a knife in his hand while unloading, can cut the band as he 

 throws the bundle to the feeder, so that no band cutter is required. It 

 took us some time to learn all these things, but now that we have them 

 learned the process is much more simple and much cheaper than when we 

 first began. 



From my eight years' experience with silos I have no hesitancy in 

 recommending them to others. I do not believe a farmer can make a 

 better investment than to build one or more silos, according to the size 

 of his farm ,and procure either alone or with one or two of his neighbors 

 the necessary machinery to fill them. If one has neighbors with whom he 

 can work harmoniously the partnership plan has many advantages and 

 will be found- satisfactory, I think, in most cases. As to the kind of a 

 silo to build, it depends, I should say, somewhat upon circumstances. If 

 the means are not available, or cannot be reasonably secured, to build 

 one that will last for a long term of years practically without repairs, 



