ELEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART XI 587 



"This crew will put in from 85 to 90 tons per day, thus it costs around 60 

 to 65 cents per ton to fill the silo." 



The above statement is a fair one. It has cost from 60 to 75 cents per 

 ton to fill the silos at the Iowa Experiment Station during the past eight 

 years. The higher cost was due to hauling a long distance or to rainy 

 weather when the loading was more difficult and the sand and dirt on 

 the corn made it very difficult to keep the knives on the silage cutter in 

 good working condition. 



WHEN TO OPEN THE SILO. 



The corn may be used for feeding purposes as soon as the silo is filled. 

 For the first few days it will be simply cut corn as it is not silage until it 

 has gone through the heating process. In a week or ten days' time the 

 real silage will be reached. When managed in this way there is no waste 

 on the top of the silo. If allowed to stand for several weeks there will 

 be some waste in the form of decayed corn. This should be removed 

 and hauled to the field in a manure spreader as it is not always a safe 

 feed for any class of live stock. 



THE SILO. 



EEAD BEFORE POWESHIEK COUNTY FARMERS' INSTITUTE, DEEP RTVER, IOWA. 

 BY H. F. CARLE. 



The silo is what you make it. What I know about the silo, from my 

 experience the past winter, I find it one of the best investments the 

 average farmer can make. 



If a man would only stop and figure out the amount of feed there is 

 in a cornstalk, when put in the silo, no other argument would be neces- 

 sary, for he would at once realize the profit, especially if he feeds stock 

 to any very great extent. For instance, when our pasture runs short in 

 the fall, the first place we go to make good the shortage is the corn 

 field. Now, experience has taught that the corn, properly preserved in 

 a silo, is just as good food for the stock in mid-winter, as when cut in 

 the fall, when it is full of juice and the flesh-making qualities so much 

 praised. And, why should it not be? I think there is more feed in the 

 stalk than in the ear. 



The great trouble with too many farmers is, they look more for bulk, 

 in the feeding material, than they do for the feeding quality. Silage and 

 a little roughage, no matter what it may be, will satisfy an animal, no 

 matter what breed or kind — all live stock like it — horses, cattle, hogs, 

 sheep, colts, calves and chickens — all feast and thrive on its richness. 



I have been feeding silage to fattening cattle, and have been giving 

 them all they want to eat. At the same time they have had free access 

 to a self-feeding apparatus where they can eat all the corn they want, 

 and my experience has been that the same age of cattle are eating less 

 corn, and putting on more fat than in former times when I confined 

 my feeding to corn and roughage. I have fed cattle of all ages for the past 

 nine years, and am free to say that silage leads all as a dependable 



