The Miller press. [volume] (Miller, S.D.) 190?-current, 1913-05-01
ANTED==COW
INSTEADOF PLOWS
What The SilO Will Do For South
Oak.

greatest mistake we ever made was
in turning too much of the native
sod wrong side up for the number of
men we had to till it.
Had we signed promises to pay
for cows instead of plows. fewer
people would have precipitately left
in the moonlight and your profit and
loss envelope would not have assum-
ed such plethoric dimensions. But
we were in a hurry to get rich and
could not wait for the slower but
more certain method of marketing
natures abundance of rich grass on
foot or through the cream IAN.
II have never een a time when
with ordinary industry we could not
provide feed right off the native
sword for twice as much stock as we
raised. The worst knockout we
ever saw was in 1911 but we lived
through 1t. and the mar with a rea-
sonable amount of stock made
money. That memorable year is
fresh in memory-especially to the
man whose grain acres were spoken
for in four figures. Its lesson burnt
deep and to that same year of our
lord 1911 and to its experience I want
to pay my respects this afternoon.
In coming years it will be green. for
in that year the speaker put IN his
first silo.
'Since the day of the buffalo he
had seen the uncertainties of grain
farming as well as the profits of
stock raising and the silo but was
to learn by actual experience the bit
ter lesson of 1911 and the antidote.
! am not gong to tell you about the
silo in Wisconsin and how it made the
state, with a sell inferior to ours,
one of the richest in the Union. or
to repeat the experiences of the
planter in Louisiana with his cane,
corn and cotton seed, but to tell you
what has been done and can be done
right here in the northern part of
South Dakota-your field of opera
ton.
I'm 1911 with surface c%ultivators
and mower wheels | kept down the
weeds and kept up the little moisture
we had in 800 acres of corn but it
was mighty poor stuff. When saw
it was not going to mature | offered
enough of it to fill a sllo to anv farm
er that would put n up. When
filling mine of 100 tons the cutter
surprised us by handling the corn
more rapidly than seven teams
would bring it in from the field. If
there is any one thing that CRATES on
nv nerves it is to see men standing
around and waiting for the bundle
teams or for some one to tell them
what to do.
Russian ThiStles
had ten acres of alfalfa handy
and put a mower and rake in it and
run it in with the corn. Even then
the silo vas not full. Only the per-
son of experience can speak of the
unsuitable NAV of the silo. Between
the alfalfa and the corn vas a o OF
Russian thist'es-s some of them four
or five feet across-of late growth
and still full of moisture. sent the
mower down the row and WI run in
about Is tons of these.
Along in January when nature
was calling for something other than
straw and hay and ~artesian water.
the stock ate the corn, alfalfa and
thistle sila9e and l didn't hear any
of them kick about a few thistles.
In fact they seemed to enjoy the
thistles Just about as we'll in the win
ter as in the summer. and you all
know how they will leave native grass
to eat the thistles on the frebreek.
but | am not advocating raising
thistles for silage. don't think we
will find anything better than corn
corn With the lower leaves dead
we'll denied, run in a" of~shat yers
silo will hold but if still room then
ANYTHING that is green. Follow com.
mon sense and the experience OF
those who have been in the silo game
and you'll win.
,Ne.Iellow that has never had
a silo that will caution you about
freezing, about cutting the corn al
Continued to last page)