The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, August 16, 1917, Page 9

The Silo Spirit is Opportune It Provides Pickled Pasture for Midwinter Blizzards, and Horses and HE silo spirit must have been born in the breast of Joseph when to told old Pharaoh of Egypt how to make the seven fat years provige for the seven lean years, Pharaoh didn’'t build silos in the modern sense, but he did build some big warehouses and he stored the provisions of the seven fat years away and made them stretch out over the seven lean years—of course taking his toll from the people just as the modern Phamoh‘s do when they open their cold storage, and their ware- houses. But that was the silo spirit— making a season of plenty provide for & season of want. The silo spirit is even more applica- ble in making a season of scarcity pro- vide for a season of still sterner want. There ign’t a stockman in the North- west this year who has not wrinkled his forehead and tried to figure out how he could save the most likely portion -of his livestock for the profit making that ought .to come to, his farming some time, but who realizes he may have to sacrifice them. A good many of these have been moved by the silo spirit, and doubtless more of them would have acted if they had had - enough left over from former years of farming to pay the price. DRY SEASON IS THE BEST STIMULANT A dry season is always a good silo geason, just as a wet season is always the best drainage season. Everyene - knows what a live topic drainage be- comes while the high water is steeping the fields beneath the hot sunshine. Just so with the silo spirit. But the spirit has been stronger this year than the means to make it effective. And yet a good many of these big farm fruit jars, wooden, concréte and other- wise, have been built. Some silo com- panies reported phenomenal demand early last summer, and construction is still in progress. There is one respect in which the silo spirit has it over drainage, and that is that after the negd has been realized, there is yet time to provide for it. You can’t lay tile in the fields after the water spreads out over them, but you can build a silo in a few days—always providing of course you can get the material. Some concrete block silos were built this summer in two or three days by three men, and they will hold 200 tons of nutritious feed for the cattle this winter. Right here let it be said that farm- ers are not going to build silos because of the war. The war is being blamed for everything that anybody doesn’t like nowadays, and credited with every spurt to business. The war is being ~ assumed as the reason for mowing the hay when haying time comes, and for putting up the regular supply of fruit end vegetables for the winter kitchen. ‘Every commonplace duty is being mada to hinge about the war, just as though farmers and farmers’ wives did not elways do their regular duties before the war. There is no use to make the war an excuse for building a silo. The silo is needed because it is about the only way to make the scant supply of feed this year stretch out over the winter until early pasture next year. MAKE SILAGE OF THISTLES AND ALFALFA In Kansas several years ago when the farmers were hit by a drouth, when their corn failed, and the weeds grew rank in their fields they cut the weeds and thistles for feed and made silage of them. Good silage hag been made of oats and wheat, and while it is a little out of the ordinary line of procedure, it may be good policy to put some of this kind of grain into silage this season in some places. This is just such another season as the Kansas farmers had, only it is- spreading much further. There is little feed, and much of that little is late. Some of the latest is going to be rain- ed on, and the farmer is gding to be forced in many instances to do with his spoiling feed, just what the farmer's wife has to do often to keep good fruit or garden vegetables from spoiling—he will have to can it, pickle it, preserve it. Alfalfa that got its rain at the wrong time, may be put in the silo and the fermenting process started by the un- welcome rain in the windrow be turned to good account. It has been done, al- though alfalfa is such good feed in its hay state (when cut at the right time) that it does not need this appetizing process as a rule. There is a good deal of sow thistle in some parts of Minne- sota and the Dakotas that might be made useful next winter as silage. It is quite coarse for hay, but mixed with other matter in the silo, it might turn out to be some farmer's salvation. Corn stover has been treated this way when it was past the stage at which it would make the best silage, but in times of need emergency meas- ures can be tried. They say engineer- ing is an ever new profession because every piece of engineering work de- mands skill applied to new problems. Farming is just like that. Farmers never find two seasons alike. They have to apply their skill to new prob- lems every season, with conditions dif- ferent from anything they ever knew before. Just so with the silage ques- tion this year. Cabbage, rape, kale have been put into the silo and con- verted into better feed than (under the circumstances) they would have made otherwise. SILOS TO FIT EVERY SOIL AND PLACE In some parts of the country there are still hot arguments over whether a silo is a practicable thing or just a “better farming” ornament invented by farmers' advisers who sit on the fence. In some places also they are still debating the old question “Which is mightier, the pen or the sword?” and the up-to-date answer without an Chickens Thrive on it as Well as Cattle Partial view of concrete silo showing construction. Several different companies are now making concrete silos in Minnesota and North Dakota and 400 have been contracted for in North Dakota alone, 200-ton silo of this type. instant’s hesitation, “the hoe and the plow” TUp-to-date farmers of course no longer argue about silos, they only have to answer the question “Which kind should I build?”"—or perhaps the. still more pointed question, “Can I build any at all with my present resources?” ~ With lumber out of reach, there has been a general turning towards permanent materials, especially con- crete, and the new concrete block type of silos can be erected so quickly that they are a genuine amergency equip- ment. With something worth while to put into it, a farmer can put the silo up in two or three days, with the aid of experts who supervise the con- struction. There are several manu- facturers of concrete silos now and this type has proven popular. A silo of this kind that will hold 200 tons, can be built for about $450 and it can not blow down. They are built of overlapping slabs of concrete, hooped together with circular bars, and painted inside with a mineral enamel that makes them quite air tight. Of course a silo of this kind, with only about two inches of concrete be- tween the winter and the silage, may allow the silage to freeze around the edges, but in the cold climates it is pretty difficult to prevent freezing. It is said that even the hollow tile silos, built on a special no-freeze plan, do not wholly protect the silage from freezing. A VALUABLE HOLE IN THE GROUND There has been a good deal of breath and paper wasted in talking about pit silos. Pit silos have been preached in sections of the country where they A good‘combination—silo and modern dairy barn on the Vinzent farm near Fargo, N. D., where J. J. Olson runs a dairy and city delivery route. Mr. Olson says he has “gone broke” several times at wheat farming, and always comes back again when he turns to cows and a silo. { 7 PAGE NINE It requires three to four days to erect a should have been known to be a failure before they were dug, but the pit silo idea is good. Many of them are suc- cessfully operated in South Dakota, Washington and Idaho. A pit silo is a hole in the ground lined with concrete, plain plaster or brick. They cost from $200 up accord- ing to the soil and the material, and some cost less than that. In some sections, as for instance the volecanic ash soil of —eastern Washington, pit silos will stand without lining, but the lining is better. One South Dakota farmer dug his pit silo in solid sand- stone, but he had to line it with con- crete to make it smooth. In some sections the soil will not stand, and in still others it is not adapted for silos. ‘Where the ground will not stand well, a collar four to six inches thick should be made by digging a circular trench and filling it with concrete and then digging the silo down flush with the inside of this collar or ring. In places where there is danger of water over- flow, this collar should extend a foot or several feet above the ground. HORSES AND CHICKENS THRIVE ON SILAGE But the thing to be remembered is that a silo is built to make better the feed put into it and if the silo is to be wet it had better not be dug. High land ought to be chosen so that the pit will drain. This sort of silo can be filled with less expense than the one above ground as the fodder is dropped down, requiring no filling machinery, but then when it comes to unloading, there is the expense of lifting it up. It is almost a standoff as far as the contest with gravity goes, for the farmer has it either way, except in those rare in- stances where a silo is located on a sidehill' and can- be filled by driving to the top of it, and emptied also by gravity. As to what will eat silage, most anything will. Horses have been kept thrifty on it with a moderate ration of grain, dairy cows require it as part of their contract to deliver the butter fat, and the beef steers that are to top the market need silage to give them the sheen to catch the buyers’ eyes. Chickens do well on silage, as part of their ration and if hens are to be kept laying durifg their naturally slack season, they must have green feed of some kind, and silage has been proven in some poultrymen’s hands to be the right kind. ABOUT TWO LIGHTWEIGHTS ‘We know of no better time than right now to make the suggestion, and that is that when the next Liberty bond drive is being made Secretary McAdoo placs the matter of procuring subscriptions {u the Northwest in other hands than Mr. Rich and Mr. Wold. For some reason or -ather this pair of Chamber of Commerce cuckoos do not make much of a hit among the boys who produce the wealth, and they just naturally resent being told where to head in by men of their calibre, big men though they may be in their own way— but they don’t weigh much out this way—DEVILS LAKE (N. D.) JOURNAL. R y