ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 59 



to become close enough to exclude the air and prevent fer- 

 mentation, which will injure it as a food. 



Every one must settle for himself as to how he shall 

 grow his corn crop, w^hether he will shock it in the field, and 

 let it cure out, or put it in the barn or the stack or in ricks 

 or in some way to protect it from the weather, or whether 

 he will allow it to stand in the field until the time when he 

 wants to use it. 



This last fall and winter have been discouraging with 

 the corn product. In September we had half as much rainfall 

 as we had in the whole of the year 1896 — something over eight 

 inches, if I remember right. I know I took more pains with 

 mj corn that I was shocking than I ever did before, but the 

 water went through my shocks and the corn was damaged, 

 not fit to feed my cows. We fed it to young cattle that were 

 not giving milk, but I was disappointed. 



That is one good thing about the silo, we are independent 

 of the weather. Our silos are built with the walls, tight so 

 that air does not penetrate; then we have the corn in the 

 proper condition, and we pack it closely, so as to keep the 

 air out; even in putting it up, if it rains we can quit today 

 and go right ahead tomorrow. We need not necessarily stop 

 for the dew to dry off, nor even a little rain. We can keep 

 right along with our work. We are really more independent 

 than we are in handling our corn in any other way, trying 

 to cure it dry. 



T find that it is not wise for me to try to grow corn more 

 than three years. Two years is enough. It is better to keep 

 up the rotation, which is not always easy when you cannot 

 get a hay crop. I have found that after growing my corn 

 two years that this little root worm comes to bother us. It 

 commences on the end of the root and follows it up, and you 

 can take hold of a hillof corn and pick it all up with one hand, 

 roots and all. The Professor at the University explained 

 to me about this little grub. He told me that this worm 

 lived entirely on corn roots and that if we would drop 

 off the corn for one year, we would starve the grub out, all 

 that were in that ground, and then we are safe until they 

 came again in two or three years. 



