10 
Bulletin 57. 
fifth, that is, eiedit tons of hay in the barn is equal to ten 
tons of hay in the stack. 
It may be asked why the farmers do not build barns for 
their hay and save these large losses. The answer is easily 
given. Barns are expensive to build and keep in repair; the 
labor of putting hay into the barn and feeding it to any 
stock, except milch cows, is considerably more than to 
handle the hay by stacking. At present low prices of hay, 
the two items above more than equal the losses of hay in 
the stack. It seems probable that at six dollars a ton the 
gains will about equal the losses, and at above that price one 
could not afford to stack the first cutting. 
All the above calculations are for the first cutting and 
for Northern Colorado. The losses with the second cutting 
are much less, while the the third cutting has practically no 
loss. 
0—ALFALFA ENSILAGE. 
Some tests were carefully made on a small scale to see 
what losses might be expected in making ensilage of alfalfa. 
One test was made with the alfalfa put in whole as cut in 
the field, the other with the alfalfa cut to quarter inch 
pieces as we cut our corn for ensilage. The whole alfalfa 
showed a spoiled layer three inches thick on the top and an 
inch layer around the side nearly all the way down. The 
ensilage of the bottom and middle was excellent and was 
greedily eaten by the cows and calves. Its loss in the total 
weight was 10.7 per cent, but its loss in feeding value was 
probably a little larger. 
The other silo was filled with cut alfalfa. The next 
day the silo was covered with two thicknesses of building 
paper and one of boards and weighted with stone to about 
fifty-five pounds per square foot. When coverd the 
ensilage was hotter than the hand could bear. Two days 
later the temperature had fallen to 83° F. and in two days 
more it had fallen to that of the air. The ensilage shrank 
and settled a good deal. When put in it contained 33.0 per 
cent of dry matter. On opening the silo showed two inches 
of spoiled ensilage on top and half an inch on the sides. The 
spoiled ensdage was 7.3 per cent of the total weight. The 
loss in dry matter was approximately ten per cent. 
It is fair to presume that with a good tight silo, well 
made ensilage from cut alfalfa should not make a larger 
loss than was here given in our small experimental silo, or 
about ten per cent of its feeding value. To make good 
