The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1894-08-25
silos Have Come to Stay.

The Committee on Ensilage and Fodder
Crops of the Pennsylvania Board of Agri
culture said of the silo:
ave believe the silo has come to stay,
and the progressive dairymen upon the
high priced lands of the East will soon
; come to consider it necessity. In our
own experience we have found no way so
easy and satisfactory, when we have the
room, to dispose of our fodder after corn
husking, as 10 cut it as it is being hauled
from the fields and pack it solidly in one
of our silo pits 1t is then all ready for
use and much improved in condition and
quality, and much better than when left
ricked or stacked out in all kinds of wealth
er. The new corn husking machines, with
their cutters and shredders attached, pre-
pairing the fodder for immediate use or
ready to pack in the silo, or some good
tight NOW, will no doubt be great i'm
provement on the present method of rick
ing the fodder or leaving it standing in the
shocks in the fields exposed to all kinds of
weather, thereby causing it to rapidly de-
teriorate in quality, thus losing much of
its feeding value.
Gas to the value of ensilage, we COM
mend for consideration the experiment of
Professor Cook, of the Vermont Expert
ment Station, by which it was clearly dem
onstrated that in this form the dairyman
can obtain more feeding from his corn
crop than by any other plan. For this
test given amount of corn was divided
into four equal parts; one was cut and run
through an ensilage cutter, and stored in
the silo in the usual way; another was cut,
and, after all the ears had been picked off,
was run through the cutter and stored as
ensilage, the husks being afterward stripped
off and placed with the ensilage from the
same plot; the ears were afterwards ground
and fed with the ensilage in the usual way;
a third plot was hauled to the barn, ears
and all, without husking, and carefully
bound up in large shocks, so as to secure
it as much as possible from loss by expo
sure; fourth part was cut, shocked,
husked, the fodder cut up and fed with
the ears after grinding.
aThe corn produced by the four plots
was, by this plan, fed to the stock in four
different forms, each of which gave food
containing the nourishment contained in
the same area of corn.
GAS a result it was found that the whole
ensilage gave result equivalent TO 39S
pounds of butter; that the second lot fed
as ensilage with the ears ground and fed
with the fodder gave an equivalent to BIZ
pounds of butter; that the fourth lot, hauled
from the field without husking and cut up
and fed ears and all without being ground,
gave an equivalent to $50 pounds of but
ter, while the fourth of the crop, which
was cut, shocked husked, ground, and the
fodder cut and fed with the meal, gave an
equivalent to 3l6 pounds of butter.
"Prof. Cooke, in his report, says the
saving of the crop by ensilage cost no more
than the average of the other three meth
DDS, and it gave very much the best re-
suits. Surprising that it cost no more than
the other methods and that we compare
it with their average, and we will note that
it showed saving of 67 pounds of butter,
which, at but 30 cents per pound, amounts
to S2010.