Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1914-10-20

prepared by the United States Depart
ment of Agriculture)
Once yeag the farmer has to FL
his silo. The operation is outside Of
the regular routine Of farm life, and
unless considerable thought is given
the matter beforehand, it is likely to
prove unnecessarily expensive Infer
nation collected by investigators in
the United States department of ag-
riculture will, therefore, prove useful
to farmers who have not worked out
for themselves the most economical
system.
Because the silo has been in use for
some years in these states, the inves-
tigators selected Wisconsin and Mich
81 farms were carefully kept, reveal
ing wide divergence in the cost of la
Dor per ton of filing the silo. 1t was
found, for example, that one farmer
did this for 46 cents, while another
had to spend sc cents. The average
cost was ga cents.
The cost of labor varies considera-
bly,, and in order to ascertain the most
satisfactory method, the investigators
adopted for their comparisons a uni
form rate of Is cents an hour for men
and the same rate for a team of two
horses. Engine hire, including the
engineer, was placed at $3.50 per day,
coal at So per ton and gasoline at 13
cents a gallon. Ten hours were con-
sidered days work. While these
figures cannot of course be consid-
cred as absolute, they afford a conven-
lent basis for the individual farmers
calculation of the expense of filing
his silo. The various methods en-
ployed on the farms that were in
vestigated were classified in three
groups.
tl) The most common practice was
to have one man with three horses on
a corn harvester cutting corn in the
field; two men to load the wagons in
the field; three or four men with
teams, depending on the distance from
the 3eld to the silo, to haul the corn
10 the cutter; one man to run the en-
CINE when steam was used for power,
and, occasionally, when gasoline en-
gines were used, one man to feed the
cutter and one man in the silo to
spread and tramp the silage Each
teamster pitched off his own load
This makes a crew of eight or nine
men, exclusive of the man who tends
the engine.
(2) In cases where there is a short
age of teams the following method is
generally practiced. One man, with
three horses, cuts the corn; two men
load the wagons in the field; two men,
or boys, with teams, haul the corn to
the cutter; one man unloads the
wagons; one man feeds and one man
works in the silo. As soon as load
arrives at the cutter the teamster
changes his team for an empty wagon
and goes back to the field after anoth-
er load When wagon is unloaded
it is run out of the way by hand With
this method, boys who are not strong
enough to handle the green corn, can
be utilized to drive the teams. This
method requires a crew of six men
and two boys, exclusive of the engine
tender
CD When enough horses are avail
able and help is scarce, the following
arrangement of men and teams is a
good one. One man, with three
horses, runs the harvester In the field;
four men with teams haul the corn to
the silo; one man feeds and one
spreads the corn in the silo Low
trucks or wagons with racks suspend
ed below the axles should be used, so
that the transfers can put on their
own loads. This requires a crew Of
seven men, besides the engineer.