Important to Farmers

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 99, 18 February 1892, Page 2

Important to Farmers

A few remarks upon silage, or the ensilage of green fodder, may come in useful in these days when profit or loss depends with so many upon the carrying capacity of their land. We understand that very considerable attention has been given in some of the other colonies to this important industry, i*ncl a Feilding gentleman has supplied us with a few particulars which attracted our attention as being worth retailing. Though known and practised by many ancient nations, those everlasting Egyptians for in-* stance, yet it seems to have been entirely lost sight of until an inquisitive traveller brought a specimen from the south of France to England, and was promptly laid by the heels by the Customs experts for smuggling a new sort of tobacco. Of course the English were conservative, or nothing, but in the fa of insular prejudices within five years agricultural returns showed that there were over two thousand five hundred silos in Great Britain, half of which were pits and the others stack erections for the ensilage of green fodder. What is the ensilage of green fodder ? Is it not another name for | reserving green fodder ? No, it does not preserve green food so much as it changes into a very different material, becoming half digested in fact, and thus making fibre that would otherwise go to waste capable of heat*pro.ducing and flesh and milk-forming to such an extent as to more than compensate for other losses inseparable from the conversion. It is not our intention to go into the chemistry of silage, but to mention some results that experience dan science have taught. Scotch thistles are found when converted into silage, to contain more nutriment than is obtained from grass, and in addition it contains 5 per cent of salt, making it, therefore, ', a peculiarly valuable food for sheep in winter. There is already a Scotch . thistle silo at " The Camp" in Feilding, ; and it gives off the odour of sweet hay , at the present time. In some parts of ; France the Jerusalem artichoke will < th?ow up a, growth of tops in sandy ] ground, #iul this being ensilaged fornis \ a winter stack of. food tli^-t the land j •could not otherwise produce. Another £ advantage in storing food as silage, , and one that will become paramount ' in hot colonies, is that the tramp, c

loafer, vagabond, sundowner or disi charged servant cannot burn it down before spurning the earth with his ■ lordly "heel. As all vegetable food contains the two necessary constituents — that is, flesh-forming and heatproducing material — in different proportions, we will conclude our remarks at present by giving the combination of seeds for an acre that have been found to produce a perfect silage : — Tares, 1£ bushels; peas, £ bushel; Ocits, £ bushel ; beans, \ bushel. We understand the Government have been approached on the subject, and there \ is a likelihood of their disseminating further information on this exceedingly important subject.