The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1899-11-01
AGRICULTURAL.
Summer Silo.

cultural department says;
During the last few months have
been collecting evidence bearing upon
the value of the summer silo, and am
now disposed to think that it will in the
near future become the accepted plan
for summer soiling, and all other plans
and practices will be "excuses" for not
adopting it, just as now all sorts of
methods are proposed for feeding the
corn crop and saving the expense of
erecting a silo, when every man knows
that not one of those methods approach
es the silo in economy of storage, of
secured feeding value of the crop or of
ease in feeding. The great drouth has
been notable lesson in regard to soil
ing crops and dependence upon them.
Over whole sections of the country
they have been almost a failure, and
were no aid in bridging over the long
dry spell; simply because the condi-
tons for producing good soiling crop
are those that promote grass growth
and make the grass crop of secondary
Importance. 1t is because of the dry
ing, ripening character of the pasture
grasses that the oats, peas, millet and
the like just coming into maturity are
so valuable. 1t is the succulence that
is needed more than fresh relays of
food nutrients, else good feed of hay
would be as valuable as the same crop
fresh from its growing.
The evidence all seems to point to
the fact that a man with small silo of
nice silage from the previous fall fill
ing has feed that surpasses in album
dance per acre of digestible food nu.
trients all other crops secured at min
imum expense preserved against flu
ture deterioration, and is, when want
ed, at ready command approached by
no other crop soiled in any way, and
its effect upon the milk flow is unex-
celled. There seems to be no dispute
that a field of corn fairly cared fed in
its glazing state is unapproached by
any other in its feeding qualities and
quantity, and the silo at smallest cost
puts it in its best condition for the
stock throughout the winter or sum-
mer. Its rapidity of preservation is
unexcelled. A neighbor in three days
has just filed his 300 ton silos for next
winters and summers feeding. All
shocking, husking and mill going are
saved. This was all completed in half
week instead of half year of labor,
as by the old plans of feeding corn
crops, and sowing successive soiling
crops next year, and daily for weeks
cutting and drawing feed. While the
losses of the silo will not exceed eight
to ten per cent, the very act of drying
and curing the corn crop means loss
of feed material alone of over twenty
per cent, without taking into account
the cost of huskng, cribbing, grinding
and the wastes that all admit in fod-
der drawing and feeding.
1t is not the small dairymen alone
who are so well pleased with their sum-
mer silage feeding; but all over the
country the great commercial dairy
men who make milk for the cities are
coming to be almost exclusive silage
feeders the year around, and their
ranks are being added to each season,
but never so largely as in the present
year. The testimony is everywhere
that with good silage rations in the
summer the diaries can be kept up to
the normal flow of milk, and at much
less expense than with either soiling OF
grain.
Opinions differ somewhat as to the
cost of summer silage and a pasture
ration, but in seasons like the present.
when there is no summer pasturage
the soiling crop is a necessity. The fly
pest is another factor in settling this
matter of some kind of summer stable
life for COW and soiling. True, we
have fly repellants and all sorts of
ways to apply them, but they are at
best only temporary standoff, and
there must either be some way of kill.
ing them off instead of soaring them or
else the COWS must be shut away from
their attacks and fed in we'll cared for
stables; and if it comes to this the slo
must play most important part in the
summer feeding Of our diaries. The
idea that silage would only keep a
short time is as fully an exploded idea
as the older one he's been that silage
would soon cause the death of COWS by
the silage acid destroying their stom-
achs and digestive apparatus; for as
long as the walls of silo prevent the
ingress of air, so long will the silage
remain unchanged In fact a pit Of
our three-year-old silage / think was In