ENSILAGE OF FORAGE.

Clutha Leader, Volume IX, Issue 494, 30 March 1883, Page 3

ENSILAGE OF FORAGE.

[BY PROFESSOR THOROLD ■ ROGERS, - M.P.]' in a Parliamentary paper of June in the present . year, Mr Drummond, the Secretary of Legation at Washington, gave an account of the manner in ■which green forage is being stored in the United States, and of the extraordinary advantages which ensued fronv the practice. The process is called ensilage, the word being originally French, and the practice having been carried on for several years in France, though apparently "with less thoroughness and : success than in the States, where the system has been known for only four or five years. It is not a little remarkable that, though a Hoyal Commission on Agriculture was constituted by the • late "Government, though it sat a long _ time, and expended a vast quantity of public money in researching into agricultural methods in foreign countries, the evi-dence-and the report say ! nothing of this, the latest and - probably by far the most important agricultural .discovery. Like most ' great discoveries, it is exceedingly simple, may be carried p,U;t inexpensively, and, with proper-

but easy, precautions^, is lunf ailing. In the United States it is reckoned by dispassionate and 'prudent'; 'agriculturists that it increases the. amount of cattle food which land will produce fourfold — i.e., that half an. acre of land will supply as much -forage as two aeres'did: under the old system, that the forage is more nutritious, better liked by the cattle, and far more suitable for the regular and abundaut supply of dairy produce than the best hay and corn or roots. Cattle fed on ensilaged fodder yield more milk and butter in winter than they do in summer, and both of the very finest quality. As the writer of this paper intended to visit the United ■ States after the Parliamentary recess, he determined to see the -process* arid to learn from those who practised it what was their experience as to the results. He soon found what he wanted, and at once discovered that there was ,no dissentient opinion as to the supreme value of the process. The United States Administration, which . has, ■ like every civilised Government except our own, a Department of Agriculture, had already been' on the al.er ( t, and had investigated the matter, receiving reports from over ninety agriculturists, one of these coming from an extensive dairy company whose operations are gigantic by the side of anything we can show. These reports were uniformly favorable, some enthusiastic, and they could have been multiplied tenfold. The ensilage farmers had held a congress in New York last January, and had themselves reported on their experiences. They intend to hold another congress next January, when there is no doubt that still further testimony and more ample satisfaction will be expressed as to the value of the new process. Meanwhile silos are being built or constructed by hundreds in the Eastern States, and not a few in Canada, the "West, and the South. With characteristic energy the American farmers are adopting this latest invention in the economy of food supply, and improving on French methods. The system is being also commenced in England, and some successful experiments have been made in the south. The attention of the Government has been directed to it, and the Board of Trade is investigating the facts. In the meantime it may be worth while to state what has been the experience of the writer. In a subsequent paper an attempt will be made to discuss the applicability of the process to British agriculture. A silo is a quadrangular,, oblong, deep pit, either sunk in the ground, or built on the surface, according' as the nature of the soil or the requirements rf the silo prescribe. It must be water- • tight, or nearly so, and the air must be as fully as possible excluded from its contents. Its principle is exactly that by which meat, fruit, and vegetables are canned, though the process is necessarily different, and the results are not precisely the same, as a slight but beneficial change takes place in the forage after it is stored. If a farmer has a dry soil, best of all if he has a bank of tolerably firm earth on his land, he can make his silos in the ground, as many men do in the States. But the best and most enduring are those constructed with masonry, the cheapest and most satisfactory being built with concrete of sharp sand or gravel and Portland cement. The manager of a sewage farm in the south of England, where it has been determined to build silos above' ground, told the writer a few days ago that he reckoned on building silos with a capacity of 100 tons, at from LI 8 to L2O a-piece. Seven such silos would store food enough to keep eighty milch cows in forage for a whole year, and the produce of the farm in question could fill a hundred silos *■ or more. In brief, under a system of ensilage a thousand milch cows could be kept on a farm of 500 acres. The best form of silo' is a pit 25 feet deep, 10 feet 10ng,., and 7^ to 8 feet wide. If it be thoroughly watertight it needs no drainage at the base, for the moisture of the forage aids in its preservation, the . American farmer, when the season is dry, watering the forage plentifully asrafe is. put into silo. He begiris his storage in the middle of" May; 'with' green rye, clover in flower, or grass, the rye~being cut when the grain is immature.-' '-'■Some farmers shred the forage as .'finely as straw is cut; some put it in whole.- Reasons' are alleged for 1 both practices.' It is said to pack- more closely , if it be shredded, and to be raised more readily when needed. But, again, some assert that it packs better when it is not cut, that less fermentation takes place, and that if - a little more labour is needed when the forage is being taken out for consumption, the labour of storage is also less. Where every convenience is- supplied -by the farmer, and the silo is built on the surface, the forage is transmitted to the mouth of the pit by carriers ranged along an endless band,' which is set in motion by a steam-engine. Silos -are -best constructed atthe end of the cow-house, and under its roof, for by this arrrigement there is the leastpossibfe' risk"and ' loss. When the silo is filled: to the brim, the forage, is heaped .above -the edge, . sometimes within a temporary frame of boards." It begins 1 , of course, to,- settle immediately and by * its. :owri weight. As soon- as convenient,. in ch-;j i thick boards, nearly, eq-uftl in length to

ihe silo, are laid on the forge, and the whole heavily weighted - -with large - stones or boxes, and barrels of sand or earth. In the best silos barrels, each weighing 500 lbs., are laid three deep over the planks. But ensilage ..may. be effected far more cheaply. The process described above is that adopted on what we should call a model farm. The small farmer digs holes in the side of the bank — the first soilos made in the States were on the bank of a stream which rose about 15 feet above the water-line— puts his forage in, covers it with two or three inches of straw, and then heap earth over the straw to the depth of three or more. In America the winter frost and snow are a sufficient covering. In England the pits should be thatched to keep the wet out, though wet is not so injurious to the forage as might be imagined, the principal object of ensilage being the exactest possible exclusion of air. The heaping heavy weights on the silos has this object The silo should he closed for at least three months} though it can be kept closed for an indefinite time. In the best • silos the barrels ■ are -lifted by a clip and pulley, and put ready. for use again into an empty pit. The planks are also ' lifted; ' and the forage exposed. It is only a little altered in colour, but generally has a slightly vinous smell, owing to incipient but early checked fermentation. Clover and trifolium come out with the colour of the flowers scarcely deadened. Cattle devour ensilage eagerly, and will not touch hay by it. A cow will take 50 lbs. a day and twc quarts of ground oats; and do better than with unstinted supply of the best hay and six quarts of ground oats. As has been stated already, they give on this food more and better milk and butter in the winter than in summer. Nearly everything grown on land, except roots, can be advantageously stored' in silos. • Green rye and oats, gi'een corn, grass, clover, saintfoin trifolium, cow peas, vetches, rye-grass, and even apples have been put into silos. Grass, which, owing to the presence of weeds, would be unsaleable if made into hay, is said to be sweetened and rendered palatable by this process. Wet in hay time is a matter of indifference to the farmer, as wet does no harm in silos, though it would be better not to pit, as some have, when a violent storm is about. The farmer, too, can leave his forage standing till the time that frost sets in before he stores it, can keep his cattle, under cover, in winter, and feed them uninterruptedly on the same- kind of food, or on different kinds of food prepared in the same manner. Many of the cows which the writer saw,' chiefly Jerseys, gave more than their weight in milk during the months of January, February, and March. On one of these farms 80 cows were fed for a twelvemonth on the produce of 34 acres, which yielded in two crops of rye and maize 700 tons of ensilaged fodder. The owner of this farm told the writer that before he adopted silos this area, would only maintain 15 cows, and that the winter supply of milk was scanty, the butter pale and flavourless. The American agriculturist looks on ensilage. as the greatest of modern discoveries, in that it will entirely reestablish, and on the safest basis, the agriculture of New England and the adjacent north-eastern States. Land was becoming valueles for tillage in these vast regions, and there was every prospect that it would in many places revert to that condition of primeval forest in which the first settlers found it. The price of dairy produce in the Atlantic cities was prodigiously high, and yet the farmer was the poorest and least progressive' member, of the community. Now he is holding his head up. He believes, indeed, that dairy produce will again be cheap and abundant. But he also believes — indeed, sees — that the same space of land under these, appliances will maintain four times the number of cattle, at not more than double the cost/ or in his case, seeing that he supplies the labour, ' at not much more than half as much more cost. Hitherto he has not got his living by- his land, for his maintenance has been supplemented by work he has done to his holding; now he looks forward to employing himself on his farm and saving considerably from the produce. — Glasgow Herald.