15G BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



SILOS AND SILAGE.' 



H. O. DANIETiS, MILLBROOK FARM, MIDDLETOWN, CONN. 



At this writing we are passing through another long siege of 

 drought, the fourth successive one of recent yeai's, and those of us 

 who are making daii'ying our life work have more cause than ever 

 to be thankful for adopting the silo. We can no longer ask the 

 question, is the silo a good thing, or, can I afford to build one? 

 Rather, the problem resolves itself into the query, how can I feed 

 a herd of dairy cows, make milk summer and winter, and produce the 

 most silage for feeding them, for it has become almost absolutely 

 necessary to have a supply of ensilage ready for feeding in the 

 summer as well as in the winter. 



We have studied this ensilage question here at Millbrook Farm for 

 a number of years, being almost pioneers in the matter of feeding 

 ensilage in Middlesex County [Connecticut], as I believe there were 

 no other silos in use when we constructed our first one nearly twenty 

 years ago, except one at the Connecticut Hospital for the Insane; 

 therefore, possibly in the light of these many years of use, we are 

 in a position to say a good word to our struggling dairymen on the 

 value of the silo. First of all, let me say if yovi are keeping eight 

 or ten cows and have not a silo do not hesitate longer to build. I 

 think after one year's use it will be found to be the best investment 

 of lime and money that could be made. Then, after filling the silo 

 the first year, which undoubtedly will be with corn, as corn is 

 acknowledged by all as the king of forage crops, study a systematic 

 plan for producing silage to feed all the year. 



When we began to grow silage crops, corn was the only regularly 

 known plant for this product, and we planted acre after acre of 

 our tillable land to this crop, adding more silos, as the needs of our 

 herd demanded, until we had every available acre of our farm that 

 corn would grow upon successfully in this crop, and still we could 

 not supply enough food for the rapid increase of our herd. Then 

 we were obliged to grow corn after corn continuously, until we 

 were shown a better way by adopting a crop rotation. Our farm is 

 small, relatively speaking, according to the number of cattle we 



» Crop Report for July, 1912. 



