The same line of reasoning applies to the ques tion of the thickness of the stand. Many more stalks will be advisable for silage than when the crop is raised for the grain alone. In fact, the Illinois station arrived at the conclusion that the greatest amount of nutrients would be secured when the corn was planted so thickly that the ears were choked down to not more than half their natural size. Under Illinois conditions the. most sound grain was secured by a seeding of about ten thousand stalks per acre, but for silage purposes at least twice as many are advisable, or say a stalk every seven inches when planted in rows three and one-half feet apart. This number would be supplied by seven to nine quarts of seed per acre, provided germination were perfect and no plants were destroyed ; but the writer, after con siderable experience in growing corn for the silo on high lands in eastern New York, has arrived at about eleven quarts of seed per acre, preferring to err on the side of too thick planting rather than long unoccupied spaces. This, of course, provides for a considerable margin for poor seed, and the cutworm and the crow.
Method of seeding.—Corn for silage is usually drilled in with a regular one-horse corn drill, one row at a time, or with a common eleven-hoe grain drill, with all the hoes but two removed. This implement will do very satisfactory work, planting two rows at a time, about forty-two inches apart.
Manuring.—The silo is an outgrowth of the dairy industry, and wherever it is found large quantities of stable manure are available. The almost universal practice is to grow corn on sod ground-- old meadows—to which manure has been applied in the preceding winter months.
Rotation. —Generally the special dairy-farmer employs a rotation of corn for the silo, oats and grass, the seeding being made with the oats, and the mowing kept for two or more years.
Companion cropping.—It has long been realized that the most serious defect of the corn plant is that it carries too small a percentage of protein to give the best results in feeding, and efforts have been made to grow other crops in combination with the corn to be cut into the silo with it. Cowpeas in the South and soybeans in the North have some times been planted with the corn, and they have resulted in an increase of the total food constitu ents per acre and at the same time have given a product of greater value for milk production. This is a very suggestive field for experimentation.
Subsequent subsequent culture of corn br silage is essentially the same as when the crop is grown for ripe grain. Inasmuch as more seed per acre is used and it is planted in drills instead of hills, greater use can be made of such cultural devices as the smoothing harrow and the various weeders, because the destruction of an occasional corn plant is a less serious matter.
Harresting and en siling.
Corn should be put into the silo a few days before complete maturity. In general, the proper stage will have been reached when the lower leaves of the plant are turning yellow and some of the earlier ears are den ted. It is possible to make good silage from corn that is fully ripe, but the coarser parts of the stalks are less palatable and the grain may be so hard that much of it will pass through the animal undigested. On the other hand there is no other stage in the growth of the corn plant when the quantity of nutrients is being increased so rapidly as during the ten days just preceding full ma turity, and the ensiling of corn too early results in very serious loss. Probably it will be better to err on the side of too great ma turity than to put the corn in the silo too green.
While there is doubtless one best time to put corn into the silo, yet there is fortunately a considerable range of conditions within which corn may be ensiled with excellent results. If put in very immature and without par tial drying, it will become excessively acid and will sometimes develop disagreeable flavors. It is a mistake to ensile corn in this condition, for the amount of nutrients is very much less than at a later period. Sometimes, however, it may be neces sary to handle late corn in this condition when frost is at hand. For example, south of Pennsylvania, in the truck ing and canning sections, ex cellent crops of silage corn are often secured after a crop of garden peas, but the corn may lack maturitywhen frost comes. Corn that is over-ripe or even badly frosted and dried will make good silage if there is a fair amount of moisture remaining. The less water in the corn when cut, the more serious the surface loss will be.
When very dry, silage is almost free of acid, but it tends to spoil by white mold. It molds a long way down from the surface and near the corners of a square silo, or where, for ..v f.;1. On neck tightly.
Corn has occa sionally been put into the silo with out any shredding, by laying the stalks compactly, shingle fashion. It is pos sible to make a very fine quality of silage in this way, but the care and difficulty, both in putting in and in feeding out, has led to the aban donment of t h e practice. The corn is nearly always cut or shredded into the silo. Ordinarily, the finer it is cut the better the results, owing to the more intimate mixture of the grain and leaves and the more compact settling.