68 



and showed plainly bj their cautious mincing manner that they 

 could not quite understand what it was. Those that refused it 

 entirely at first soon fell to tasting it, and after four or five feeds 

 they all ate it as naturally as hay. 



Four or five days after the clover had been thrown out of the 

 silo, I noticed that the cows when .passing that way stopped and 

 fed upon it. Scarcely believing then that they would eat much of 

 it, we tried it in their mangers, and found that they ate it greedily ; 

 they even ate much of that which was musty, so that but a few 

 forkfuls remained. 



The ensilage is taken from the silo by means of a large box 

 provided with an iron bail and a bottom made of two doors, which 

 open from the midJle outwards and letting' the ensilage drop. 

 Eunning along under the peak of the roof over the silo is a track 

 such as is used for the horse hay fork carrier. Upon this are the 

 same carrier and attachments that are used with the hay fork in 

 summer. When the box is filled, a horse is hitched to the rope 

 running outside the silo, the load is raised to the ridge track, 

 along which the carrier takes it to the outside of the building, 

 where the doors of the box are opened, and the ensilage is dropped 

 into a shute, from whence it drops into a car and is taken to the 

 stock barn near by. I do not claim anything peculiarly econom- 

 ical in this arrangement, but urge upon those who think of build- 

 ing a silo to plan most carefully to avoid the necessity of handling 

 the ensilage often, or carrying it far. It is bulky food, and 

 whether or no it is profitable must depend largely upon how 

 economically it can be handled. 



It was planned to feed ensilage along with fodder corn cut from 

 the same lot and thus find the comparative values of the two, but 

 the rainy fall so spoiled the fodder corn that this project has been 

 abandoned and the trial is now between meadow hay and ensilage. 

 Two milch cows are being fed ensilage, and two others hay, both 

 lots having all they wish to eat. Beside this they have equal 

 quantities of bran and oil meal. At this writing, the experiment 

 has been in progress but a few days, but now seems to indicate 

 that more milk will be obtained from the ensilage than from the 

 hay. 



