8 INTRODUCTORY. 



and three-fourths of a million of them. Wisconsin alone, ac- 

 cording to a report issued by the Orange Judd publications, 

 had 41,535 silos on Jan. 1, 1914, and figuring the same ratio 

 of increase for 1914 as for 1913, would have 52,334. The 

 same report showed 130,303 silos in thirteen dairy states of the 

 Mississippi valley and the 1914 increase figuring as above would 

 indicate a total of 170,837. The most rapid strides in silo build- 

 ing, however, have been made in the Southwest. On Sept. 1st, 

 1914, there were 8,560 silos in Texas and 4800 more under con- 

 struction. In Kansas there were 7,137 silos in March 1914 and 

 taking the report as authentic that there were only 60 silos in the 

 state in 1909, the increase in the five years amounts to 11,800 per 

 cent. Oklahoma silos increased 50 per cent, in 1913 alone. Not 

 only has the use of silos spread to every section of the United 

 States, but the corn belt has been pushed steadily northward, with 

 the result that the building of silos is making headway in Mani- 

 toba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and the Canadian 

 Northwest generally. During the past two years there has been 

 a wonderful increase in the interest taken in the subject, an in- 

 terest fostered by the example set by the Canadian Government 

 Experimental Farms and the literature available from them. 



The silo stands today among the most important, practical and 

 profitable adjuncts of the farm. It is a big dividend-paying in- 

 vestment not an expense. It has long been considered a necessity 

 on thousands of dairy farms and we find most of them in the 

 states that rank first as dairy states, viz.: New York, Wis- 

 consin, Iowa, Illinois, Pennsylvania, etc. The farmers that have 

 had most experience with silage are the most enthusiastic advo- 

 cates of the siloing system, and the testimony of intelligent dairy- 

 men all over the country is strongly in favor of the silo. Said a 

 New York farmer recently in one of our main agricultural papers: 

 "I would as soon try to farm without a barn as without a silo," 

 and another wrote, "I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for my 

 silo if I could not replace it." The well-known agricultural writer, 

 Joseph E. Wing, says: "No stock feeder who grows corn can 

 afford to ignore the silo." "Buff Jersey," an Illinois dairy farmer 

 and writer on agricultural topics, declares his faith in silage as 

 follows: "I am fully satisfied that silage is a better feed, and a 

 cheaper one, than our pastures." Another writer says: "The silo 

 to my mind presents so many advantages over the system of 



