Farm Field And Garden
When to cut the corn is now pretty well determine. The agricultural experiment stations east and west have agreed that when the corn is in the glazing stage it is in its best condition for the silo. Professor Roberts, of Cornell, found that between the development of the tassel and the glazing of the ear the gain in feeding value was nearly 200 per cent. The tnethods of cutting the corn in the field when it has reached the right Btage are undergoing improvement. The corn knif e in ti. j hands of an activa man is yet the chief implement relied upon to ent the corn and lay in gavels in the field. Numerous machines have been devised but all f ailed until the past year, when harvesters were bröught out that promise well. They may be so improved that they will take the place of hand labor in the field. Many devices are contrived on which to draw the long bundies of fodder from field to silo, bul the vehicle most used is a farm wagon with the nsual flat hayrack npon it floored over. The gavels are picked up from the grotmd by a man and handec lip to the driver of the wagon, who de posits theiu on the rack, the tops all ono way. The load of 2,000 pounds is quick ly put on, and the load is driven to the silo, üthers use a low swung platform hung between the widely separated fore and rear wheels of a wagon, and the loader lays the gavels upon the platform without assistance. At the silo the process is substantially now everywhere alike. The silage cutter is run by a steatn engine of 8-horse power. The cutter has a carrier that elevates the ent silage up over the walls of the silo. The fodder is unloaded from the wagon directly upon the table oi' the cutter without rehandling. The silage is kept leveled in the pits. but only now and then does a farmer attach any importance to the tramping that was once considered so essential. John Gould, from whom we quote the forefgoing, tells as follows in The American Agriculturist how he filis a silo: "The writer has a platform '% fee equare hung just below the upper end of the carrier. The silage as it is thrown out falls upon this platform, quickly forming a pyramid of the fine fodder. The out silage, as it slidesdown theslant of this pyramid, is given a 'shoot' to the sides, and in falling twenty-five feet or moi-e is thrown all over the surface of the pit. It accomplishes by its own gravity what a man is otherwise required to do with forks. As the silage will naturally bethe highest at the walls, the grain ís equally distributed through the mass, and the labor of an hour per day in the pit has resulted better than when a man waa i-nnst.ant.lv einnloved. for now 1 have no moldy or spoiled silage in thecomers and along the sides of the pit, -which did happen to some extent whenjrarnping was indulged in." In regard to covering, Mr. Gould says the oíd way of close covering and heavy weighting have proved more damaging to the top layer of silage than no covering at all. In Ohio the custom of putting on a few inches of wet straw immediately after the silage is in and leveled off is rapidly gaining favor. Some put on wet swale hay, and now and then a man does not cover with anything, and has as good success as any one. Wet chaff or straw cut fine, on being dampened down, has proved as perfect a cover as any. Still, cover as one may, there will be a loss of about two inches of silage on the surface in any event.
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Ann Arbor Argus
Old News