FODDER FOR ENSILAGE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 3006, 1 October 1908, Page 7

FODDER FOR ENSILAGE.

The best en-ilage, Dr. Cherry, Vic-

torian Government dairying instructor, writes, is made from plants with a solid stem, as maize, sorghum, and amber cane, while with these crops there is the further great advantage that the whole of the s tm, if the material is chaffed, becomes so soft and succulent that none is wasted by the animals. Considering also the total yield per acre, there is ho question that where a crop is specially grown for the silo one of these should be chosen. The hollow stem or the cereals contains air, and this increases the loss by fermentation, even when chaffed: but in spite of this defect there is no better way of utilising a crop of rye or barley grown for fodder which has become over-ripe to be relished by the cows. If other methods of security green fodder are available, oats, wheat, and the mixed grasses and cloveis are better made into hay. Cabbage, rape, and roots cannot be preserved as silage. In the north ttie abundant spring growth of trefoil, barley grasa, and self sown cereals should be made into silage because in moet cases this is the best way to secure succulent food in the long, dry summer. The trailing salt-bush, a}so, when chaffed, makes excellent silage. A mixture of. peas, tares, beans, or clover, with maize for the cereals, greatly increases th 9 food value of toe silage, and, according to Canadian experiments, one acre of sunflowers with two of tick beans and four of maize makes a very satisfactory balanced ration for the dairy cow. Ensilage should contain 75 to 80 per cent, of water; that is, most crops should be siloed when the flowers are all out and the graiii well torrced. An exception occurs in clover, trefoil, and lucerne, which should be, cut when ic full bloom,' and allowed to wilt one day before filling into the silo. Generally speaking the crop is ready for the a'lo a little earlier than it is for lay. Maturity ii very important in tne case of maize and similar crops which mature rapidly after the cobs are well formed.. Immature maize contains little nutriment. A word may be said about stack ensilage. Ido „vt recommend it for general adoption, on account of the amount of wasie due to the imperfect exclusion x of the air. This is shown by the fact that stack silage has always lost the peculiar aroma of chaffed silage, indicating the extent to which fermentation has progressed. In a. . year, however* when there is abundance of fodder it is very, much better / to make a stack of some kind rather than be without succulent food in the dry weather. The'main points about the stack are that it should be ciicular and as high as possible. Settlement will reduce the height by about

one-half. The stack requires to be weighted, and this is best done by .placing a thickness of two or three ' feet of earth on top of it. A convenient plan is to surround it with a circle of saplings to keep, the walls upright. If the binder has been used to cut the crop the bands should be cut and the sheaves spread out as the stack is being built.