72 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE. 



closely ; and upon these covers we put fifty tons of stone to each 

 silo (stone picked up on the farm). Within a week one had settled 

 to twelve feet and a half, and the other to eight feet and a half. On 

 the 2Gth of October we opened the silo having the eight feet and a 

 half of ensilage, and found the fodder as green and sweet as when 

 first put in ; we used no straw under the covers, and yet right next 

 to the boards the corn was all right. We have fed the stock since 

 Oct. 2G ; and they are all right, looking and feeling well. One 

 cubic foot of ensilage weighs forty-seven pounds : we are feeding 

 sixty-five pounds to each cow per day, with four pounds of middlings 

 and a half pound oil-meal (cotton-seed meal). We had, before we 

 began feeding the ensilage out to the stock, two hundred and twelve 

 tons ; and the exact cost of harvesting it, filling the silos, putting on 

 stone, etc., was two hundred and seventeen dollars, allowing full 

 wages for our own time, etc. We are now going to feed fifty to 

 fifty-five pounds to each cow per day, and increase the grain to about 

 six or seven pounds for the cows still giving milk, and half as much 

 to the dry ones. This two hundred and twelve tons from seven acres, 

 or a little over, is a large result, and is equal to seventy-odd tons of 

 hay, "costing but three dollars per ton, or ten tons to the acre. We 

 believe that by putting all the manure back on the seven acres of 

 land, that we can get up to forty, and possibly fifty, tons to the acre. 

 We see no reason now why the cows that are being fed on ensilage 

 will not continue to do well in condition and product ; and our plan 

 now is to raise about fifteen acres of corn next season (1881), and 

 this will be sufficient to fill the silo full, giving us four hundred tons, 

 and this will keep forty cows three hundred and sixty-five da} r s ; but 

 as we shall pasture all of the side-hill during the summer season 

 (about twenty acres), the pasture will also grow better, because the 

 cows drop more upon it than they take from it. We think we can 

 give the cows all they will eat, morning and night, of the ensilage, 

 and keep in this way fifty head, the year round, on fifteen acres of 

 corn, and twenty acres of hill-side pasturage. We, however, imme- 

 diately after taking off the corn early in September, ploughed up the 

 stubble, and put in winter rye. This came up finely, and we will top- 

 dress it this winter, and early in the spring give it a good bushiug-in. 

 We expect to cut the rye by June 1 or 5, and cut that up the 

 same as we do the corn, and store it in one of the silos, then imme- 

 diately plough the same seven acres, and put in corn ; whether this 

 will work, remains to be seen. But we have full confidence in the 



