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Show SILOS THAT PAY. These Are Invested of Numerous Super. Unities ami .Hade Truly Krnuoniirnl. Ill a series of letters written to Country Ctcntleman is one from a Now- York farmer, who has this to say about building build-ing and covering silos: "Theoretically, the only object in inclosing a silo is to exclude air from sides and bottom. Then w hat can be gained, so far as preservation preserva-tion of silage is concerned, by doublo boarding outside with matched lumber and paper between? If the lining of the silo be such as completely to exclude the nir, is not the intertilling with sawdust and tho intei-placing of paper entirely superfluous? We all know that the inside in-side partition must be air tight or ensilage ensi-lage rots Again, after paying a man several days' work tramping the pit, t'j? contents settle somewhat. Then what has been gained by tramping? The specific spe-cific gravity of the mass packs it more solidly, after it becomes softened by the necessary fermentation, than forty men and horses could do before the fermentation fermenta-tion has taken place. Thirdly, the only object in coveriug a silo is to prevent th3 too rapid escape of moisture and heat. It is proved by the experience of hundreds hun-dreds that a covering of sw-ale grass or cut straw a foot deep, when compacted, serves this purpose completely. Then what possible good can be derived from the ext ra tight board and paper covering and a few tons weighting?" A second correspondent gives his experience ex-perience with a so called cheap silo. The silo is built with a good foundation laid in cement. Tho uprights are 3 by 8 inches by 1-1 feet. The ontsido 13 covered with novelty siding, the insida lined with old boards, a layer of heavy tarred paper and last matched hemlock, dressed 011 one side, put on vertically. In filling this silo the silage is dropped into the center of the pit, where it stays for twenty-four hours, when one man spreads it evenly over the whole surface, keeping the ceuter higher than the sides and doing very little tramping about the edges. This method gives the settling mass a const ant outward pressure, which is desirable in keeping the air excluded from the sides. Tho silage is often allowed al-lowed to lie iu a heap as it drops from the earner for two or three days, if weather prevents cutting and hauling, and then the heated mass is spread, giving giv-ing an even, high temperature to all parts of the silo. The first year this correspondent covered with tar paper and boards aud one foot's depth of silage was spoiled. The second year he covered with straw only, with much less waste. The last two years ho has cut the fodder after husking tho field com directly on tha silage already heated and settled, and the last method has given a result as nearly perfect as could be desired. The rising steam from the silage &olreus-th tough, dry cornstalks so that the cattle waste none. The silage comes rut sweet, not a bushel having been spoiled the past two years. He feeds two bushels bush-els per day to each cow, with a light feeding of hay at noon. In addition to the silage and hay each cow in milk is fed four quarts of bran and two quarts of cotton seed meal, with highly satisfactory satis-factory results in way of milk, butter, etc. Pasturing W heat. Occasionally farmers are known to have pastured their growing wheat with supposed beneficial effects. Obviously there should be in such cases so luxuriant a growth as to make a temporary check desirable, and the pasturing should be done by animals of light weight and never when the plants could be tram pled into a soft, clay soil. To test this question with some accuracy by actual ' comparison between contiguous pastured and unpastured plots, trials were made itt the Kansas station with wheat sown in September on fifteen plots. As reported re-ported in the station bulletin, cows were pastured on five of these plots in October and November, and on five others in April, and tho remaining five plots were nn pastured. In this test tha unpastured plots showed an average gain of 1.5 bushels per aero over those pastured. Whether the food obtained by pasturing will compensate for this difference in yield cannot well bo determined on so small a scale. The pasturing of wheat, however, how-ever, is considered by the station officers an important practical question, as uianj. uouco ........ ence oti the food that their wheat fields furnish iu fall and spring. Worth Knowing. A popnlar way of poling running beans is by setting a pole in the center of a hill and planting the beans around it. An improvement on this plan is to set the pole in the center of four hills and stretch a string from the top to a hooked peg in the center of each hill. According to The Jersey Bulletin there is nothing better for calves than a liberal allowance of skimmed niiik, oatmeal, bran and cornmeal, equal parts by weight, with good pasture. The cow i3 made within the first eighteen months of her life. This is the time to make her grow. When young trees have been damaged during tho winter by the gnawing of rabbits or field mice, or have in any way become barked, the thing to be done is to protect the wounded parts from the air by bandages of cloth, and where the injury is close to the surface, hilling up the soil around it may be practiced. The guinea is a very 'useful fowl notwithstanding not-withstanding its peculiarities. In their wanderings over the farm they destroy numerous insect enemies and weed seed and do little damage to crops by scratching scratch-ing and eating. They lay a large number num-ber of eggs which, though small, are of good quality and nutritious. A correspondent jn one of the bee journals stated that his apiary averaged nearly one hundred pounds of excellent comb honey to the colony, the majority of which camo from blackjack acorns. During the night the acorns were punctured punc-tured by some insect and the next day the bees would gather tha sweet substance sub-stance which oozed from the punctura. |
