SILO AND SILAGE 



5384 



SILO AND SILAGE 



are stored for winter feed for farm stock. 

 Silage is the term by which the feed is known. 

 The storing of silage is of recent origin in 

 America, having been introduced from Europe 

 in 1875. Few well-equipped farms are now 

 without one or more silos. 



How to Make a Silo. The first silos used in 

 America were merely pits dug in the ground 

 and covered with boards when full. These 

 were abandoned for square wooden buildings, 

 which were also found unsatisfactory, as the 

 angles prevented the proper filling of the space 

 and the exclusion of air. Next came the circu- 

 lar silo, which is now universally adopted as 

 the most convenient for filling and the best for 

 storage purposes. The silo may be of wood, 

 brick, stone or concrete, the last-named mate- 

 rial being the most satisfactory. 



Whatever the material used, care must be 

 taken to make the walls air-tight, as on this de- 

 pends the quality of the silage. Concrete walls 

 are usually built six inches thick at the bottom, 

 tapering to four inches at the top. For wooden 

 silos, southern cypress is the best material to 

 be obtained. The cost of this wood is high in 

 some localities, however, and it may be re- 

 placed by white pine or hemlock, which are 

 cheap and durable. A silo is generally built 

 with a conical roof and may be so constructed 

 that it becomes an ornament to the farm. The 

 silage may be put in and removed through a 

 door at the top or it may be put in at the 

 top and taken out through doors built into the 

 sides. Some silos are equipped with ventila- 

 tors which carry off the gases rising from the 

 silage. This is not at all necessary, and the 

 ventilators merely cause extra expense. A silo 

 should always be circular and never less than 

 six feet in diameter. A serviceable size is ten 

 feet in diameter and twenty-five or thirty feet 

 high. The diameter may be increased, but the 

 height should remain about the same. 



Silage or Ensilage. The chief food plants 

 used for silage are corn, clover, oats, rye, sor- 

 ghum, alfalfa, cow peas and beans. The most 

 desirable of these is corn. The crop should be 

 cut before the moisture in the plants com- 

 mences to dry. The silage must be placed 

 evenly in the silos, carefully spread in layers, 

 and pressed down. One cubic foot of properly 

 packed silage will weigh about forty pounds. 

 As silage does not constitute the sole winter 

 food, forty pounds will be quite sufficient for a 

 cow's daily ration, so the amount of silage to 

 be stored can be readily calculated on that 

 basis. One ton of silage will feed a cow for 



fifty days. A herd of twenty cows fed on silage 

 for 150 days will therefore require sixty tons 

 of silage. An allowance of about ten per cent 



AN ORDINARY SILO 



The opening shows something of the interior 

 appearance. 



should be made for waste, so that sixty-six 

 tons should be stored to produce sixty tons of 

 food. In removing silage from the top, care 



