CHAPTER I. 



ADVANTAGES OF THE SILO. 



The silo enables us to preserve a larger quantity of the 

 food materials of the original fodder for the feeding of farm 

 animals than is possible by any other system of preservation 

 now known. Pasture grass is the ideal feed for live stock, 

 but it is not available more than a few months in the 

 year. The same holds true with all soiling crops or tame 

 grasses as well. When made into hay the grasses and 

 other green crops lose some of the food material contained 

 therein, both on account of unavoidable losses of leaves 

 and other tender parts, and on account of fermentations 

 which take place while the plants are drying out or being 

 cured. 



In cases of Indian corn the losses from the latter 

 source are considerable, owing to the coarse stalks of 

 the plant and the large number of air-cells in the pith 

 of these. Under the best of conditions cured fodder corn 

 will lose at least ten per cent, of its food value when 

 cured in shocks; such a low loss can only be obtained 

 when the shocks are cared for under cover, or out in 

 the field under ideal weather conditions. In ordinary farm 

 practice the loss in nutritive value will approach twenty- 

 five per cent., and will even exceed this figure unless 

 special precautions are taken in handling the fodder, and 

 it is not left exposed to all kinds of weather in shocks 

 in the field through the whole winter. These figures 

 may seem surprisingly large to many farmers who have 

 left fodder out all winter long, and find the corn inside 

 the shock bright and green, almost as it was when put 

 ap. But appearances are deceitful; if the shocks had 

 been weighed as they were put up, and again in the late 



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