346 SOILING CROPS AND THE SILO. 



is more costly. Whether the advantage will repay 

 the additional outlay has not yet been proved. 



The third method, thought at one time to be 

 absolutely essential, has been almost entirely dis- 

 carded, not because of its want of efficacy so much as 

 because of the labor involved. The benefits derived 

 from it are greater when some covering is put on as 

 described above, before the planks are laid over the 

 food and weighted with stone or indeed any other 

 heavy substance. The advantage from thus weight- 

 ing the silage will be lessened by giving much tramp- 

 ing to the food as the filling of the silo nears 

 completion. No doubt there will be less waste of 

 silage when food in the silo is thus covered and 

 weighted. The saving thus effected in the silage will 

 be more than is generally supposed, because of the 

 salutary influence which the weighting exerts on the 

 silage for some distance from the surface, even 

 though it may not have lost its color. But as stated 

 above, the practice is not in favor because of the cost 

 involved. 



The plan of covering silage by strewing grain, 

 as oats for instance, over the top of the same, and 

 then pouring water more or less copiously over the 

 mass, is a good one. The heat engendered in the 

 silo starts at once a rank growth in the grain. The 

 growth of top and root become so dense as to go far 

 toward excluding the air. And when the living 

 mass falls down and decays, the influence exerted, 

 for some time at least, is practically the same, hence 

 there is usually but little loss in the silage. This 

 plan has the merit of cheapness, of economy in labor 

 required and of efficacy in a marked degree. 



