Soiling crops and the silo; how to cultivate and harvest the crops; how to build and fill the silo; and how to use silage

Front matter

-Sj-

Chap.._lO.__ Copyright M,..

Shelf ..'.oS -^

PART TWO Chapter I. page

Chapter IL i

Chapter III.

Facts Relating to Silo Construction ------- 269

Chapter IV.

Building the Silo ----------- 292

Chapter V.

Crops Suitable for the Silo -------- 322

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIG, PAGE.

2 Squaw Corn for Fodder -------- 20

3 Giant Fodder Corn for Soiling ------ 27

4 Early Amber Sorghum --------35

5 Sorghum Grown for Soiling, First Cutting - - 43

7 Yellow Milo Maize -------- 55

9 Jerusalem Corn --------- 59

10 Alfalfa, Single Plant --------- 87

11 Alfalfa, Grown for Soiling ------ 99

12 The Mummy Field Pea -------- 103

13 Vetches and Oats for Soiling — Second Cutting - - 115

14 Sheep Pasturing on Soy Beans ------ 120

15 Soy Beans for Soiling ------- 127

16 Sheep Pasturing on Cowpeas ------ 130

17 Cowpeas Grown for Soiling ------ 137

18 A Dwarf Essex Rape Plant ------- 141

19 Dwarf Essex Rape for Soiling ------ 151

20 Cabbage for Soiling - - - - - - - - -156

21 Oats and Wheat for Soiling or Fodder - - - - 169

22 Oats and Peas for Soiling ------- 178

23 Oats First Pastured, Then Grown for Soiling - - 180

24 German Millet for Soiling ------- 184

25 Hungarian Millet for Soiling ------ 186

27 Jerusalem Artichokes -------- 227

29 Sheep Barn with Round Silo ------ 294

30 Section of Stave Silo -------- 296

31 Splice of Stave with Iron Tongue ----- 303

33 Door of Stave Silo ---------306

34 Sketch Showing Stave Silo with Shute, Ladder and

35 Sketch Showing Stave Silo with Roof and Lugs Prop-

erly Distributed --------- 309

36 Section of Wall of Rectangular Silo ----- 310

37 Elephant Fodder Corn -------- 324

38 Sorghum for Silage --------- 326

ix

Author's Preface

This book is one of a series on agriculture which the author hopes to be spared to complete. It is designed more especially to meet the needs of dairymen when providing green food for their stock, summer and winter, but it is also intended to be similarly helpful to all farmers who keep domestic animals on the arable farm, and it is hoped that the student also at the agricultural college may be able to glean from its pages what will be helpful to him when prosecuting his investigations. Excellent information on the subject of soiling and also on that of the silo has been furnished by various authors, but in a form more or less fragmentary, irregular and incomplete. It has been the aim of the author in the present work to cover these subjects with at least a measurable degree of completeness and system.

In writing a series of books on agriculture, it is not easy to avoid some repetition. In fact, it is practically impossible to do so. For example, when one book treats of forage crops other than grasses and is followed by a second on soiling crops and the silo, as in the present instance, it will be found that many of the crops grown for these respective uses are the same. They are grown on the same kinds of soils, and the methods of growing them are similar.

xi

Xll ' AUTHOR S PREFACE.

If each treatise is to be complete in itself, the methods of growing these respective crops must be given in both, and this necessitates some repetition. It has been, and will be, the constant aim of the author, however, to avoid such repetition to the greatest possible extent. By combining two or more separate treatises in one, repetition could be almost entirely avoided, but the purchaser would then have to pay for matter in which he might not be interested in order to obtain that which was of special interest to him. Of the two plans, the author believes that he has chosen that which will be more advantageous to the general public.

University Experiment Farm,

Chapter I. Soiling Crops

Soiling crops are those which are sown from time to time to furnish food for domestic animals, and which are to be harvested while yet immature and fed to them in the pasture, the paddock, the feed lot or the stall. Corn cut and thus fed to animals at any stage prior to maturity furnishes an illustration of a soiling food. A soiling food is, therefore, another name for a green food. It is not necessary that it shall be fed as soon as harvested, but it is necessary that it shall be fed in the green form. Corn preserved in the silo is essentially a soiling food, inasmuch as it is cut when immature and in that condition is fed to live stock, though it may not be fed for months after it has been cut, as for instance, when it has been preserved in the silo, hence the propriety of combining the subject of soiling crops and the silo in this treatise.

Soiling crops differ from forage crops in that the former are harvested and then carried to the animals which consume them, whereas live stock gather the latter for themselves; and soiling differ from fodder crops in their being cut and fed green, whereas fodder crops are frequently harvested when mature or approaching maturity and are always fed to animals in the cured form. People who are disposed to follow rigidly the teachings of the dictionaries will probably take some exception to these definitions, but the time has certainly come when more precision must be given to at least some of the definitions in agriculture, to prevent confusion of ideas. For instance, the definition of forage crops given in our best authorities would make these include soiling crops also. Such a definition is at variance with common usage, and surely the popular idea when consistent and legitimate is of higher authority even than that of the recognized standards.

Adaptation in Soiling Crops. — The growing of soiling crops is chiefly adapted to an mtensive cultivation. It may be better associated with the tillage of small rather than of large farms and is better adapted to localities where the population is crowded and markets are near, as, for instance, in the neighborhood of large cities. It was to be expected therefore that the growing of soiling foods would first receive attention in the east, and so it did. But the day is coming, and is near, when in one or the other of its forms it will be most extensively carried on also in the west, and more especially in those sections in which dairying prevails.

Soiling is, of course, only necessary on farms on which live stock are kept more or less numerously. And even on these it may not be much needed when pastures are plentiful and succulent during the greater part of the grazing season. It is more needed in dry than in moist climates, on poor than on rich lands, and where milk is sought rather than beef.

Partial and Complete Soiling. — Partial soiling means supplementing the pastures with green food for a part of the season, as occasion may require. Such food may be given once a day or oftener, according to the needs of the animals. The chief object sought in partial soiling is to keep domestic animals abundantly supplied with palatable and nutritious food, when the food from the pastures is inadequate. And where milk production is involved it aims to furnish succulent food after the grass pastures have lost much of their succulence, even though they should still be abundant. Partial soiling is best adapted to a system of cultivation that is intermediate between the extensive and intensive systems ; that is to say, to a system that meets the needs of the average arable farm. In all countries with summer climates deficient in moisture it is an essential appendage and material help to dairying. In no other way can the dairyman keep up a maximum milk flow at so small an outlay.

Complete soiling has reference to that system by which domestic animals are sustained on food fed to them in the stall, the feed lot, or the paddock during all the year. It does not imply that all the food so fed shall be given to the animals in the green form, but that green food will usually form a considerable portion, if not, indeed, the greater part, of the ration. Complete soiling is adapted to an intensive system of cultivation ; that is to say, where cultivable lands are scarce and dear, and from which it is necessary to obtain a maximum yield while they are being tilled. Its general adoption in this country where land is so plentiful, and in which it is relatively so cheap, is probably remote rather than near, notwithstanding that it has been practiced in some sections of the thickly populated countries of western Europe for many years.

Benefits from Grozmng Soiling Crops. — The following are the more important benefits from growing soiling crops : i, Food supplies are increased in a marked degree ; 2, in various ways the waste in feeding is lessened; 3, animals are sustained in better form than where soiling is not practiced; 4, injury to the land through poaching is prevented ; 5, a salutary influence is exercised on weed eradication ; 6, a saving in land is effected ; 7, a saving in fertility is effected ; 8, a saving is also effected in the item of fencing; 9, animal production is greatly increased; and, 10, the cost of keeping the family cow is lessened.

Increase in Food Supplies. — Soiling enables the farmer to grow more food than he could by any other system. Usually the growth of plants is hindered in proportion to the extent to which the plants are pastured down while yet immature. And crops that are pastured are further injured by the tramping of the animals that feed upon them. They are injured directly by the bruising which they receive from the hoofs of the animals which feed upon them, and indirectly by the impaction of the land from pasturing it when not dry enough. These facts are simply mentioned without taking space to give the reasons. And since soiling crops are usually cut a little short of miaturity it is more practicable to grow two crops from the same land, where soiling is practiced, than where it is not.

The relative increase in food production where soiling is practiced as compared with pasturage can not of course be stated otherwise than in the most approximate manner. It will vary greatly with such conditions as soil and season. But it will not be extravagant to say that when animals are soiled all the year in the one instance, and when they are pastured during the seasan of pasturage, and are then wintered on food grown on other land in the other instance, a given area will sustain at least twice the number of animals through the year by the former system than it will by the latter.

Less Waste in Feeding. — When crops are fed under the soiling system there is less waste than when pastured or fed in the matured form. This saving is effected, first, in the absence of injury through treading as compared with pasture crops ; second, in the absence of loss in harvesting as compared with matured crops ; and, third, in the more complete consumption of the food. The injury to pasture crops through treading has already been referred to.

Soiling crops when judiciously managed are seldom so injured by the weather as to be rendered unfit for food. Fodder crops when matured are frequently damaged by rain when being cured. When thus damaged they lose in palatability, in nutrition, and also through mold induced by storing when not yet fully cured.

The more complete consumption of food fed in the green form as compared with food fed when ripe, arises chiefly from the greater palatability of the former. The fodder portion of plants, that is to say, the stems and leaves, is always better relished by animals when fed before they are fully matured. For instance, feed rye to cattle when it has not yet reached the earing stage, and it will be eaten with avidity. Feed it when fully out in head and it will be eaten indifferently. Feed it when ripe and little else than the heads will be eaten. Feed the straw after the grain has been threshed, and it will be consumed by the animals only when impelled by hunger. Chemists tell us that fodder plants contain all the food elements that they will possess at the time the ripening process begins, that is to say, by the time they have reached that stage when the stalk begins to assume a yellow tinge at the ground. They should be fed, therefore, as soiling food before they pass this stage, for as soon as they get beyond it there is loss in palatability. And there is loss in digestibility as the ripening stage is neared, that is to say, the proportion of the indigestible woody fiber is increased.

On the other hand, when plants are cut when considerably short of maturity, there is loss from want of sufficient development. Theoretically, the most food will be got from plants when they are cut as soiling food a little short of maturity. In practice, however, this is impossible, as it would too much curtail the length of the period for feeding each crop. But with crops that grow again and again, as with alfalfa, for instance, there is no loss probably in cutting them as soon as they have made sufficient growth to justify the expenditure of the labor involved.

Sustains Animals in Better Form. — By the aid of soiling food domestic animals can be maintained va better form than without it. With such aid they can be maintained in a more even condition, the animal energy can be more perfectly conserved, and the succulence of the foods usually exercises a wholesome influence on the health of the stock.

In the absence of soiling foods it is hardly possible for the farmer to keep his animals through all the year in what may be termed a well balanced condition. When he depefids wholly on pastures during the summer season these may fail. When they do his animals suffer proportionately. On the other hand, if the pastures are superabundant there is waste. When pastures lose their succulence, the milk flow from milk-giving animals is proportionately reduced, and no after feeding will wholly restore it, howsoever suitable it may be. As the character of the season cannot be foreseen, farmers are wise who make provision for a possible shortage in pasture by sowing more or less of one or more crops to provide soiling food. If the best possible returns are to be obtained from animals, they must be well supplied with food every day in the year. When animals are fed in whole or in part on soiling foods, they may frequently be kept nearer at hand than when not so fed, hence their needs can be more easily met. When the days are hot they may be more easily housed. In the time of flies they may be more easily protected from the same by keeping them in cool, darkened sheds or stables during the heat of the day. In hot weather they can be left out in paddocks over night, and in cold weather they can be housed. Such attentions have a marked influence in maintaining an equilibrium of condition.

The use of soiling foods conserves animal energy by lessening that waste which arises from undue lO SOILING CROPS AND THE SILO.

exertion on the part of animals when gathering their food. When the dairy cow has to travel far when seeking food in the pastures, she does so at the expense of food required to sustain the prolonged exertion. And when food is thus used to sustain energy it is very evident that it cannot be used to make milk. Likewise, wdien growing cattle have to travel beyond a certain limit in order to get supplies for the day, they do so at the expense of flesh. And the same is true of the horse, the sheep and the pig. Live stock should, of course, be given sufficient exercise to keep them healthy and to give them proper stamina. Beyond this, exercise means waste of food, and this waste can be prevented by growing a sufficiency of soiling foods.

Soiling foods, judiciously fed, tend to keep the animal system in proper tone, hence thus far they exert a favorable influence on the health of live stock to which they are fed. In the absence of those foods it is difficult, if not impossible, to keep the system in the best of tone during certain periods of the year. Where soiling foods are not grown there can be no assurance of succulence in the pastures beyond the early summer months. Pastures will not sustain an undiminished milk flow in cows, even when considerably short of the yellow leaf stage. When dry and crisp they are a less valuable food than well cured hay, notwithstanding that the food may be abundant. On such pastures swine will soon lose flesh unless the pastures are supplemented with other food. By growing succulent foods in due succession and in adequate sufficiency they may be made available for live stock in one form or the other during a large part of the year, if not, indeed, through the whole year ; hence the beneficial influence which they exert on the health of the animals may be made continually operative. But there are other senses in which the soiling system may become prejudicial to the health of the animals. These are discussed on Page i8.

Injury Through Poaching. — When the soiling system is practiced, lands are not injured by poaching, that is, by the treading of the animals when the hoofs sink below the surface of the land. On all soils poaching is to some extent harmful, and on clays it is quite harjnful, since impaction follows on the return of dry weather to the very great injury to the growth of the grasses. As no person can control the weather, the farmer who is dependent on pastures only to provide food for his live stock in the season of growth must needs allow them to feed upon the pastures betimes when they will injure them by treading; and it may be added that close grazing in very dry weather may seriously injure pastures. Particularly is this true of pastures in some parts of the dry west. The farmer without soiling food may be powerless to prevent such a result.

Influence on Weed Eradication. — The soiling system may be made to render material aid in eradicating Aveeds. This arises, first, from the thickness with which the food may be grown; second, from the season at which much of it may be sown ; and, third, from the immature period at which it is reaped.

Soiling food ma}^ be sown more thickly relatively than if the same plant or plants were sown to produce a matured crop of seeds. Such sowing secures more of fineness in the food, and in consequence more of palatability. The food thus grown crowds weeds because of its thickness, and also hinders their development because of the density of the shade.

Soiling food may be sown at different seasons because of the difference in the habits of the plants thus grown. Several varieties may be sown late. When these varieties are thus sown, ample time is given to sprout and in turn to destroy myriads of weed seeds that may be in the upper section of the tillable soil. In fact, where such cultivation is what it ought to be, the ground will be comparatively clean before the crop is grown or planted.

As soiling foods are cut while yet immature, the weeds wdiich grow in them have not the same chance to mature as though the crop had been allowed to stand until fully ripe. Notably is this true of soiling crops that are sown reasonably early. And when these are removed early in the season, another soiling crop, or a catch crop of some kind may be made to follow the first one. This second crop will also be helpful to the cleaning of the land.

Saving in Land. — Growing soiling foods effects a great saving in land, as it enables the grower to raise much more food from a given area. The saving thus effected is greater relatively in the west and south than in the east and north. This arises from the greater relative adaptability of the east and north to the growing of grass pastures, and from the greater relative adaptability of the west and south to the growing of soiling foods. The extent of the saving will vary with the conditions. But it would not be extravagant to say that ordinarily where three acres of grass are required to keep a milch cow in good form for six months, it would be possible to grow enough soiling food to keep the same cow all the year. In some sections of the prairie in the far west, where cultivated grasses have not been grown with marked success, the difference would be even greater. In instances, not a few, it has been found possible to grow ample supplies of food on one acre by the soiling system to feed a cow all year. As the population becomes more dense, and as populous cities multiply, the saving in land effected by soiling in either of its forms will increase in importance, and more in the neighborhood of large cities than elsewhere.

Saving in Fences. — Growing soiling foods lessens the necessity for building fences on farms on which live stock are kept. A marked saving is thus effected in labor and money, the extent of the saving being proportional to the number of animals kept, to the cost of labor and materials for fencing. Unless where the materials for fencing are very cheap, it is a costly affair, both to build and to maintain fences. It is seldom that any kind of fence, strong enough to secure cattle, can be built for less than twenty-five to fifty cents per rod, when labor and material are included, and in some instances the outlay would be much greater. This outlay, or much of it, must needs be repeated at least every other decade, to say nothing of the sums paid out from time to time in repairs. There is also the further objection that on the strip of land on which the fence stands, weeds are much prone to grow, unless considerable hand labor is expended in keeping them down.

On the other hand, we must not assume that the soiHng system will entirely obviate the necessity for fences. Theoretically, where complete soiling is carried on no fencing would be required other than that used in enclosing the yards and paddocks in which the animals are to be exercised, or in which they are to be kept over night in w^arm weather. But this idea must not be pressed too far, for where sufficient stamina in live stock are to be maintained, animals must have exercise beyond what they will voluntarily take in small paddocks.

Saz'ing in Fertility. — The soiling system effects a great saving in fertility, since it enables the farmer to make more and better manure than can be obtained from live stock kept on the pasturing system, and less of Avhat is thus made is w^asted. More manure is made, first, because the animals are at all times on full feed, whereas on pasture they are frequently on short supplies, and, second, because by the soiling system a greater number of animals can be sustained on a given area. The manure made is likely to be more valuable, since along with soiling food greater quantities of meal, rich in the elements of plant growth, are usually fed. And there is less waste in the manure made if properly saved, since its value is not then impaired by insects and other adverse influences, as it is when dropped in the field. In many instances the soiling system will enable the farmer to more than double the value of the manurial product made, as it enables him to more than double the supplies of food grown.

Increase in Animal Production. — Such a system cannot fail to increase animal production. The extent of this increase Avill be in proportion to its completeness. If it increases the food products 100 per cent, it will also increase the milk or meat production more than 100 per cent, since the animals maintained will be increased proportionately. They will also be maintained on foods at all times ample in quantity and of correct adaptation. These influences will tend to a further increase of production. The greater outlay involved, however, in securing this added increase should never be lost sight of.

Sustaining the Family Cow. — In villages, in suburbs of towns and cities, quite a number of the inhabitants keep cows. To such people the cow is a source of untold blessing, because of the utility of the product which she gives. Oftentimes those people are unable to secure adequate pastures. This difficulty may easily be overcome when the owner of a cow possesses a small piece of land. He can then supplement the pastures by growing soiling foods, and with great advantage to both cow and land. Where but one cow is kept, a small area will suffice to supply her needs.

Some Objections to the Soiling System. — To the soiling system there are some objections. Chief among these are the following: i, It involves increased outlay for labor; 2, it requires more constant attention on the part of the attendants ; 3, it is not always easy to adjust the food supplies to the needs of the animals, and, 4, it may, in some instances, tend to impair the stamina of live stock.

Increased Outlay for Labor. — The soiling system cannot be adopted in either of its forms without a considerable increase in the labor of those who care for the live stock so fed. Even in the partial form, increase in labor is considerable. In the complete form, it is much greater; and of course increase in labor involves a corresponding increase in outlay. The increase in labor arises, first, from the necessity for cutting the food daily, or at intervals of not more than two or three da3^s ; second, from the necessity for handling and conveying it to the animals in the green form; third, from the necessity for feeding and otherwise caring for the animals from day to day in the pasture, paddock, shed or stall ; fourth, in caring for the yards or paddocks and in handling the manure. From the sum of this labor, however, in making the comparison, there should be deducted the less amount of the labor necessary in providing fencing. Notwithstanding, the extra labor involved, and the increased expenditure resulting therefrom, is the one great standing hindrance in the way of the more general adoption of the system of complete soiling by the farmers of this country. Nor is the adoption of complete soiling likely to become general until farm labor becomes cheaper and until land becomes scarcer and dearer. But beyond all question, in the opinion of the writer, the day is not very far distant when complete soiling will be practiced by a considerable number of the farmers in every state of the Union.

Partial soiling does not involve nearly so much labor as complete soiling, hence it is practiced by a greater number of farmers. Dairymen, especially, cannot well get along without it. The necessity for thus growing and feeding food to supplement the pastures increases with the dryness of the climate. So essential is it to the highest success in raising and properly maintaining farm stock that it must eventually be practiced by all or nearly all farmers who do not follow the system of complete soiling.

Tax on Attendants. — Where complete soiling is carried on, th-e care of the animals must be continuous throughout the season. Every day thereof brings its round of duties, and they cannot be neglected except at the expense of the live stock. Food must be secured for the animals with unfailing regularity, it must be fed to them every day, and usually two or three times a day. To the average farm laborer this work savors so much of the treadmill order that it is distasteful. He looks upon it in the light of a yoke which he does not care to take upon himself. Hence, until those better days come when such labor will be looked upon through a proper lens, for it has its compensations, the adoption of the soiling system in either form will be relatively slow.

Adjusting Food Supplies. — Complete soiling calls for the exercise of much thought in securing food supplies and in adjusting them to the needs of the animals. There must needs be succession in foods to keep up a constant supply. No one food is at its best for soiling uses for many weeks in succession. There must also be variety in the foods thus grown in succession. This is essential to the wellbeing of the animals to w^hich the foods are fed. It is further rendered imperative by the different periods of the year when various plants grow and mature sufficiently for being fed at their best. A supply of these foods must always be on hand through sunshine and storm. In some instances, however, showers fall frequently and for days in succession, so that it may not be easy to secure food supplies unless when soaked with rain; and it may be also more or less soiled with earth. To properly adjust these matters in the face of varying seasons is no easy task. It cannot be done without the exercise of much forethought.