I9 8 ILLINOIS STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 



a letter from him; I wrote and asked him if the statement in the 

 circular of the company was correct. He wrote me quite a detailed 

 statement. His statement was that he put 178 steers on ensilage the 

 first day of September, weighing them at the time and weighing every 

 feed of ensilage they received up to October 1st. The cattle had no feed 

 to speak of beside ensilage, and. they weighed 52 pounds more on Octo- 

 ber first than they did when they began, and used 1,300 pounds of en- 

 silage. That is a pretty good illustration of what ensilage will do for 

 cattle feeders. 



I met a man awhile ago who was telling he built a silo 13 years ago 

 and had filled it every since and fed it exclusively to steers. He said he 

 could not get along without the ensilage. Another point he made was 

 thai a silo was not necessarily an expensive building. A mere frame 

 work of 2x10 studding and lined with just 1 inch flooring. He said that 

 floor had been filled 13 times and has not decayed, but was in perfectly 

 good condition, with the exception of the two bottom boards, and they 

 had been touched with dry rot. 



Briefly, I will give you the style of silo to build and the manner of 

 building. I advocate the round silo. To build a round silo of 2x4 stuff, 

 gel your lumber and have it dry and free from loose knots; see that 

 edges are straight, so that when walls are up edges will touch evenly the 

 entire height of silo. In a circle of 14 feet or more it is not necessary to 

 bevel the lumber to fit the circle; it is better not to do so, because the 

 lumber will dry out more quickly when ensilage is removed,, which tends 

 to prolong the life of the silo by checking decay. In case beveling is 

 done, don't bevel the entire stick's width; only take off bevel from cen- 

 ter of timber; this will leave other half slightly, separated from its 

 mate, giving air a chance to dry the wood. To the novice an empty 

 stave silo, with its staves showin g daylight, shining through cracks 

 from top to bottom is far from air-tight building, but one has only f o 

 tighten up hoops snug and go ahead and fill. A stave silo is like a leaky 

 barrel; it only wants hoops driven tight to make it as tight as ever. 

 While the silo has not hot water, it has something just as effective — 



