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Show Fine Type of Silo. By W. MILTON KELLY. I Beforo it is time to fill the eilo It should be examined and If a slave silo, ' he hoops should be tightened and the loors numbered, eo that each door will 3t properly in Its place as soon as the silo is filled up that far. All of these thing? should be attended attend-ed to before the crew and machines :egin to v. ork, for It makes an expen sive delay to stop all hands and do a Ittle tinkering that could as well have been avoided by a little work at home I it a more favorable time We figure that it costs us about j ixty or seventy-five dollars a da' when we are Oiling our silo, and plan .o make every man's time count as much as possible. We make a practice of starting one corn binder cutting, the day before filling time and then keep two binders cutting while the corn Is being run into the silo. We do not like to get too much corn on the ground before we begin filling, owing to the danger of rains and unfavorable weather for v. orking. When the corn is convenient to the silo we employ four teams to haul the corn to the cutter and four extra men In the field to hand the bundles up to the drivers One man is kept at the cutting machine to assist the feeder and to save the strings that are used to bind the bundles This we do as a matter of precaution more than to save the strings, for there have been numerous instances where cows have been injured by eating tho strings after aft-er they have been run into the silo. Two or three men are kept inside the silo to keep the outside edges packed and to distribute the ensilage over the surface properly. With a good working crew of 14 men beside the crew with the engine and cutter, 100 to 125 tons make a good day's work 1 find that on figuring everything OS a strictly cash basis, it costs about 70 cents a ton to harvest ensilage crop, that is allowing each man $2 per day, tho teams $4 per day and the1 crew and machine 2 per hour, run- I ning time Of course, this Is not the exact cost, for there are numerous . conditions that we cannot allow for, but taken one year with another I believe be-lieve that 70 cents a ton is a fair average av-erage for the cost of cutting the corn and filling the silo When it is possible, we fill the silo Saturday and allow It to settle over Sunday and fill tho other Monday and then place a woven wire fence around the one that Is filled first and refill I to tho top of the fence so that when the ensilage settles it will be as near full as possible, and after this we refill re-fill the other one In the same way. For a few days we make a practice of keeping the edges packed down and lose but a small amount of ensilage. When it is possible, for a man to ex- ! change help, the cash cost of filling may be greatly reduced, but my figures fig-ures are based strictly on a cash basis, hiring everything done by outside labor. |