ECONOMY OF SILAGE. 21 



was much more valuable than if it had been fed dry from 

 the field. 



Where haymaking is precluded, as is sometimes the 

 case with second-crop clover, rowen, etc., on account of 

 rainy weather late in the season the silo will further- 

 more preserve the crop, so that the farmer may derive 

 full benefit from it in feeding it to his stock. Frosted 

 corn can also be preserved in the silo, and will come out 

 a very fair quality of silage if well watered as referred to 

 above. 



7. No danger of Late Summer Droughts. By using 

 the silo with clover or other green summer crops, early 

 in the season, a valuable succulent feed will be at hand 

 at a time when pasture in most regions is apt to give 

 out; then again, the silo may be filled with corn when 

 this is in the roasting-ear stage, and the land thus en- 

 tirely cleared earlier than when the corn is left to ma- 

 ture and the corn fodder shocked on the land, making it 

 possible to finish fall plowing sooner and to seed the 

 land down to grass or winter grain. 



8. Food from Thistles. Crops unfit for haymaking 

 may be preserved in the silo and changed into a palatable 

 food. This is not of the importance in this land of plenty 

 of ours that it is, or occasionally has been elsewhere, 

 Under silage crops are included a number of crops which 

 could not be used as cattle food in any other form than 

 this, as ferns, thistles, all kinds of weeds, etc. In case 

 of fodder famine the silo may thus help the farmer to carry 

 his cattle through the winter. 



9. Value in Intensive Farming. More cattle can be 

 kept on a certain area of land when silage is fed, thaai 

 Is otherwise the case. The silo in this respect furnishes 

 a similar advantage over field-curing fodders, as does the 

 Boiling system over that of pasturing cattle; in both the 

 siloing and soiling system there is no waste of feed, all 

 food grown on the land being utilized for the feeding of 

 farm animals, except a small unavoidable loss in case of 



