British Farmer Saves Yearly 1100 Tons of Ensilage

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1940, Page 21 (Supplement)

British Farmer Saves Yearly 1100 Tons of Ensilage

Silage is a real standby for most animals. It is an extremely flexible food and little equipment is need to make many tons. In a recent British publication a description is given of the methods employed by Mr. Clyde Higgs. who farms 700 acres at Stratford-on-Avon and saves. annually 1100 tons of green crop as ensilage. Mr. Higgs started by digging a trench four yards wide. two feet deep, and as long as was necessary. The floor was sloped to one end and drainage arrangements were made when the land was heavy. With a Cutlift, his labour was a tractor driver. a loader and a man and a boy at the trench. The boy applied the treacle— 301b diluted with sufficient water to make it pour easily, to each ton of wet stuff. He fed his dairy cows with 301b daily, which, with 141b clover hay, made their maintenance ration. To get a good reserve of hay, he dressed all paddocks growing crops from young seeds with half a ton of slag and in February they received lcwt of sulphate of ammonia. A subsidy of sunshine made a bumper crop. Some fields of old turf which could not be ploughed got a dressing of quick-acting . manure in the hope of making some rough hay, which might be useful. He also had a nice acreage of winter beans, and. as an insurance against a dry summer — he hoped the policy would be a total loss— he had 30 acres of peas, rye and vetches. If it was not used as green fodder it would do for hay or silage, and as the field was smothered in wild raddish. it both grew food and killed weeds. .The field would. later be | sown with ryegrass and broad red clover i to provide autumn grazing.