The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1912-06-12
HOW WILL YOU
Use YOUR CROP?
A Few Suggestions on SiIage, the Pop
uIar Cattle Food Product Of
the Present.
PLAN WHILE THE CROP GROWS
Farmers Have Been Trowing Away
Great Deal of Feed-Best Way
to Utilize Is in the SiIo.

We hope that while our readers wer,
running the planter they though
seriously about what they will do witt
the crop, in case the seed has stuff
cient termination. Will he use hi
corn as grain or as fodder or as silage
This is simple problem with thu
renter who has no stock and who i:
farming simply for share of thu
grain, particularly if he rents on {
one-year lease. 1t presents a different
problem to the man who has adopted
rotation and is growing more or less
stock. There is no permanence to any
system of farming which does not in
volve rotation; and by rotation
we mean not merely change from
corn to oats or wheat, and then to
corn, but a rotation that gives large
place to grass and especially to lie.
gumes. This involves some kind of
live stock to use the grass and rough.
age of the farm.
We ask this class of farmers-and
may their numbers increase until they
are not merely a majority, but the
whole of the farmers of the middle
west-to consider the silo, whether
they are darying or growing young
stock or finishing steers for the mar
ket. 1t has been assumed for a long
time that the silo is good thing for
the dairyman. We now find that it is
quite as good thing for the man who
is growing young cattle or feeding
sheep, and we are now beginning to
learn that it is most excellent thing
for the cattle feeder. In fact, We are
finding out that he cannot feed eco
nomically without it.
The old custom of buying two, three
and four-year-old steers from the
ranges and finishing them out with
corn, with hogs to follow, has gone
out never to return. To begin with,
we cannot get the steers on account
of the breaking up of the range and
the diminishing numbers of the feed
ers we secure from there from year to-
year. We have a good deal of rough
land in the United States, fit only for
grazing; but this will not supply the
wants of the feeders of the corn
states.
AS matter of fact we have been
throwing away great deal of our
feed all these years, simply because
we could do it and still make little
money; but the time is coming now
when we must feed on different
plan. We must approximate the meth
DDS of English feeders, fattening our
live stock with less high priced corn.
We cannot get the cattle in sufficient
numbers; and corn is too high priced,
and will be as rule for years to come
to justify US in throwing away half its
value. Neither can we throw away
the value of our corn fodder as we
have done in the past We must util-
ize the whole crop.
The best way of utilizing part of it
at least is in the silo, and the rest
probably in the shape of fodder, feed
ing it with the corn, or shredding and
feeding it without the corn. 1t has
now been pretty thoroughly demon
strated at the experiment stations that
silage furnishes the cheapest method
of fattering cattle for the market,
not for the whole fattening period, for
in the last stages the steer cannot
hold enough of it, but for the first
three months, finishing out with corn
and cottonseed or oil meal. The diff
ferent stations have been experiment.
ing for two or three years, and we
have from time to time given the re-
suits of this experimentation.
The Iowa Experiment station has
recently sold Nebraska cattle after
five months feeding as high as $500,
which gave net profit of $17.27 to
$23.4O per steer. The silage-fed steers
made a gain of pounds day the first
three months and 90 to "a pounds
day for the five months feed. Other
states, notably Indiana, tell the same
story, one experiment corroborating
another under different conditions.
Therefore, if you are going to feed
cattle next year, get a silo. Think
about it while you are planting your
corn; and if you have already made