152 HOW TO MAKE SILAGE. 



cutter, without stooping over and without raising the corn 

 up to again throw it down. A plank that can easily be 

 hitched on behind the truck will prove convenient for 

 loading, so that the loader can pick up his armful and, 

 walking up the plank, can drop it without much exertion. 

 If wilted fodder corn is to be siloed it should be 

 shocked in the field to protect it as much as possible from 

 rain before hauling it to the cutter. 



Siloing Corn, "Ears and All." 



The best practice in putting corn into the silo, is to 

 silo the corn plant "ears and all," without previously husk- 

 ing it. If the ear corn is not needed for hogs and horses, 

 or for seed purposes, this practice is in the line of econ- 

 omy, as it saves the expense of husking, cribbing, shelling 

 and grinding the ear corn. The possible loss of food ma- 

 terials sustained in siloing the ear corn speaks against 

 the practice, but this is very small, and more than coun- 

 terbalanced by the advantages gained by this method of 

 procedure. In proof of this statement we will refer to an 

 extended feeding trial with milch cows, conducted by Pro- 

 fessor Woll at the Wisconsin Station in 1891. 



Corresponding rows of a large corn field were siloed, 

 "ears and all," and without ears, the ears belonging to 

 the latter lot being carefully saved and air-dried. The 

 total yield of silage with ears in it (whole-corn silage) 

 was 59,495 pounds; of silage without ears (stover silage) 

 34,496 pounds and of ear corn, 10,511 pounds. The dry 

 matter content of the lots obtained by the two methods 

 of treatment was, in whole-corn silage, 19,950 pounds; 

 in stover silage 9,484 pounds, and in ear corn, 9,122 

 pounds, or 18,606 pounds of dry matter in the stover 

 silage and ear corn combined. This shows a loss of 1,344 

 pounds of dry matter, or nearly 7 per cent., sustained by 

 handling the fodder and ear corn separately instead of 

 siloing the corn "ears and all." 



In feeding the two kinds of silage against each other, 



