FIFTIETH ANNUAL CONVENTION 153 



STORING SOFT CORN 



Live-stock feeders agree, that the best plan for storing 

 soft corn is to put it in the silo. Farmers who do not have 

 enough silo capacity to handle all their corn crop in this 

 way can save the most valuable part of it by making silage 

 out of the ears. Silos can be used for storing and drying 

 ear corn for commercial use, as will be described later. 



Pit Silo Has Possibilities. 



The pit silo offers a possibility whereby farmers with- 

 out standard silos may be able to save part or all of their 

 soft corn. This type of silo can be built cheaply and has 

 been used successfully in many localities. The use of it, 

 however, is limited to a well-drained location. It is best 

 adapted to dry regions and gives the most satisfactory re- 

 sults where there is loess soil, which does not cave in to any 

 great extent. If the place where the silo is to be located 

 meets these requirements, it is only necessary to dig a hole 

 similar to a cistern, plaster the walls, put on a top, and the 

 pit silo is complete. In the loess section of Illinois, such a 

 silo would be worth considering for the storage of soft corn. 



The pit silo sometimes is made in the form of a trench. 

 This type has not been used in Illinois, but is used in the 

 dried sections of the country and has been recommended 

 for soft corn by the Minnesota Experiment Station. The 

 use of this sort of silo in Illinois is advocated only in an 

 emergency. 



Under ordinary soil conditions two men with four horses 

 can dig a trench silo of 200 tons capacity in five days. A 

 trench ten feet wide, eight feet deep, and eighty feet long 

 should hold about 100 tons of silage. If the trench silo is 

 being built in soil that has a tendency to cave, the danger 

 of this may be lessened by giving the walls of the trench 

 a slight slope. Silage that is put in a trench of this kind 

 is spread in the usual way and thoroly packed by leading a 

 horse back and forth on it. 



The octagonal silo, shown in Fig. 1, is a cheap emer- 

 gency silo that can be built easily. When carefully built 



