The Portland daily press., 1893-12-18
SOlLlNG FROM TIE SILO.
Opinions Expressed on Feeding Corn En-
silage During the Summer Season.

silage During the Summer Season.
The Rural New Yorker recently
raised the question of the summer feed
ing of corn ensilage. A number of
farmers in eastern and western states
expressed themselves on the subject.
There appeared only one opinion against
it, and that was conservative. John
Gould of Ohio is in its favor and has a
special silo fitted for the next midsum-
mer soiling. Editor Hoard of Hoard's
Dairyman, while having no experience
in the matter himself says that the
files of Tho Dairyman contain several
reports from persons who have made
this practice for the past three or four
Years, and the testimony is invariably
in the affirmative as to it's good effects.
Ed Van Alstyne of New York says ON
the subject of summer feeding of ensi-
lage in place CT the usual soiling crops:
This is practiced by many not only
in July and August, but through the
entire year. The requisites are sep
arate silo for the purpose, deep, with
small surface, insuring solidity, and
enabling one to feed from the entire
surface each day, to a depth of at least
four inches. This should insure the en-
silage at its best. The advantage is
that corn can often be put into the silo
in the fall at one operation much more
cheaply than man and team can go to
the field each day during the busy sea-
son and bring in green foods to the
cows. Then, too, much more fully ma
tured corn can be obtained from an acre
than is possible to get from any other
crop at that season of the year, when
-soiling is necessary.
Ensilage does give as good results in
milk production as green crops-better
than from the ordinary sowed corn.
Great care should be taken that it is fed
after milking, If fine butter or cream is
the end sought, for the acidity of the
ensilage, particularly in warm weather,
will have tendency to produce an I'M
pleasant flavor in the product. There
would of course be no danger of this
with green crops cut each day.
1t should always be remembered that
corn ensilage is earbonaceous and is not
perfect food in itself. In fact, have
never found any soiling crop, unless it
be oats and peas at their best--that is,
when well filled with grain-that would
give satisfactory results without grain
ration fed with them. On nearly all
farms good pasture does not exist for
more than month or six weeks in the
spring and for about the same length of
time in the fall. If profit is to be made
from the cows during the summer, some
supplementary food must he provided.
Ensilage does make the farm more
nearly self supporting. 1t enables the
pasture to carry more cows, but it will
not take the place Of the heterogeneous
portion of the grain ration. This I
can best supply by cottonseed meal, or,
failing in obtaining that, wheat bran.
Glover After Clover Sod.
The idea that clover will not grow
well on newly turned clover sod comes
from the experience of farmers in wheat
growing sections, where the clover sod
is plowed in the fall, seeded with wheat
and then with clover again in the spring.
In such case the mechanical condition of
the soil is not right for the seed after it
terminates so as to allow the young
plant to get firmly rooted. Asod plowed
in the fall does not rot much until
spring, especially if little green heritage
is turned under. It holds the furrow
up and makes the land peculiarly light
and porous.
When clover seed is sown late in win
ter or early in spring, it terminates well
and begins to catch hold of the soil with
it's roots. The farmer thinks as he sees
thick seeding Of clover early in spring
that he will have good catch. But the
unrotted sod let's air in under the clover
roots, and if there comes dry time the
clover, having little hold on the soil, per-
ishes. Besides if there are hollows I'M
der the furrow these are closed up when
the sod begins to rot, the sod falls down
and leaves the clover roots broken and
exposed. The American Cultivator says,
"We have seen many cases where the
failure of clover was distinctly traceable
to this cause"