148 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



certainty of the results to be attained through the practice of ensiloing the 

 corn crop. There has been a great evolution going on, not only in the pro- 

 duction of the corn crop for the silo," but to a greater extent in the silo itself. 

 In our first experiments, we sowed the corn so thickly that few ears were 

 made, and the immature product was, with the greatest haste, cut into great 

 underground pits, walled with cement, and constructed at a great expense. 

 It was tramped and packed and made as tight as possible in the silo, and 

 when the pit was full, a cover of a foot of cut straw or chaff was placed over 

 the top, and then a board cover fitted over the whole and tons upon tons of 

 rock piled on to further compact the mass. The result was a slow fermenta- 

 tion and a very acid product from the immature corn stored. Doubting men 

 called it "saur. kraut," and properly, too. It was found that the sour mass 

 was greedily eaten by the cows, but the ill smelling stuff gave the dairy product 

 a bad name with some of the establishments buying the milk, from which 

 some of them have not yet recovered. A process, however, that has in it the 

 germs of good, cannot go backward. Notwithstanding the fact that some 

 of the best thinkers prophesied that ensilage would soon be a forgotten fad 

 the evolutionary process went on. We soon came to the conclusion that a bet- 

 ter crop must first be grown, as the foundation of the silage, and chemical 

 analysis showed that the stage in which corn had the largest feeding value was 

 when the ears were fully grown, and that to make a really good silage we must 

 have a well grown crop of corn. We began to plant more thinly and to give 

 the corn the same attention we would to make a crop of grain. 



Then began the study of methods and silos. We found that on taking 

 off the load of rocks and board cover, there was a black, stinking mass of rot- 

 ten straw. We got to thinking about the reason for this decay, and soon ar- 

 rived at the conclusion that the shutting down of the moisture arising from 

 the heating mass, and confining it right at the surface, was a bad thing. We 

 cut our first crop of well matured corn for the silo in the Summer of 1886. 

 The crop was a very heavy one, and we cut it in more slowly than we had 

 ever done, often letting it lie for 24 hours or more to settle while filling. 

 When our silos were full we determined to make one more big change, and 

 though we knew everyone else was still piling rocks on board covers, we boldly 

 left off all but the cover of cut straw. The result was our first "sweet ensilage." 

 Of course there was some acidity, but, as compared with the old product, it 

 Fmelled like a good article of New Orleans syrup. Since then we have never 

 put boards or rocks on a silo. 



Next began the study of the silo itself. We found that in an under- 

 ground pit with cemented walls, there was always a great condensation of 

 moisture on the walls, and this damaged the ensilage along the sides. We 



