LIBRARY
KBUVERSn Y OF CALIFORNIA
DAVIS
BLUNT'S PROLIFIC.
On Ensilage
OF GREEN FORAGE CROPS
In Silos.
EXPERIENCE WITH ENSILAGE AT ECHO DALE FARM;
ALSO THE PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE OF
Twenty-five Practical Farmers
WITH ENSILAGE AND SILOS,
Giving their experience of feeding stock of all kinds with Ensilage, and
the practical results, conclusively showing the undoubted success of
this process, the Ensilage of green forage crops. By this
process the farmer can realize five dollars in place of one
dollar as practised by the old system of farming.
Also wonderful experiments of feeding poultry,
at one-half the usual cost, on Ensilage.
By
H. R. STEVENS,
Proprietor of " Echo Dale Farm" Dover, Mass.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR.
1881.
COPYRIGHT, 1881,
BY HENRY R. STEVENS.
Electrotyped and Printed by Rand, A-very, <5r Co.
II-] Franklin Street, Boston.
TO
PROFESSOR J. M. M^BRYDE,
AND MY OTHER CORRESPONDENTS,
WHO HAVE KINDLY AIDED ME IN THIS WORK BY THEIR PRACTICAL
EXPERIENCE, I RESPECTFULLY DEDICATE
THIS BOOK.
INTRODUCTION.
IN placing a publication of this kind upon the subject of ensilage,
I do not claim to have invented or made any improvements upon the
original practical experience as perfected, after years of many expe-
riments, by M. Auguste Goffart of France. To him alone belongs
the honor. In my opinion the dawn of day is upon us, and the sun-
shine will spread its golden rays upon the farmer on the practical
workings of preserving our green crops by ensilage.
Mr. J. B. Brown of New York translated the publication upon the
subject of ensilage, by M. Auguste Goffart. I obtained this book
from the first, read it carefully and thoroughly. I then resolved to
build a silo, and try the experiment. As the surrounding farmers
said, after they learned what I was going to do, " You can afford to
lose it if it does not work well, and I don't believe it will." With
their consolation I did try it, built an experimental silo capable of
holding forty tons, filled it with green-corn fodder, and it proved a
complete success.
And yet many farmers say to-day, " I do not believe it will work
half of the time." I then thought they needed some practical expe-
rience from a number of practical farmers. I concluded I would
publish a work upon the subject of ensilage, giving the practical
experience of practical farmers as well as my own. I made arrange-
ments to find out the practical farmers who had the courage to enter
into this comparatively new enterprise. I have either visited or cor-
responded with thirty-seven different parties, mostly farmers, who
8
INTRODUCTION.
have built silos, and filled or partly filled the same with ensilage ;
and, when you have read the practical experience of these men, you
cannot doubt of the perfect success of preserving our green crops by
ensilage ; and, when you can earn two dollars at half the expense
that you before earned one dollar, you will believe and practise it
after you have read this book carefully, and you will build a silo,
and meet with the same success as my correspondents have. You
will then be as enthusiastic upon the practical workings of ensilage
as they are to-day ; and to the farmer of New England it will add
millions, and may well be called a revolution in farming.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
WHAT MAKES THE FARMER HAPPY?
PAGE
Advantages of ensilage. The farmer can earn two dollars at half the ex-
pense he before earned one dollar. Great advantages to the farmer and
his stock in the winter. Milk of December equal to milk in June; rich
butter and fine flavor in winter. Condition and health of cattle.
Advantage of ensilage in all weathers 18
CHAPTER II.
"SILO," "ENSILAGE," DEFINED.
Description and definition of "silo." " Ensilage." Origin of the word
"silo." The term "ensilage" applied by the French .... 19
CHAPTER III.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM J. M. M^BRYDE. TREATISE ON ORIGIN AND
PROCESS OF ENSILAGE.
Origin of ensilage. "What G off art claims to have developed or discovered.
Process described before Goffart began his experiments. Ensilage
was tried successfully; facts and particulars given. An old process
revived. This system is no longer an experiment, but a perfect success.
What it promises to do for agriculture 20
CHAPTER IV.
LOCATION OF SILOS.
Locations, convenience, saving of labor, and feeding of stock. Description
of different locations. Advantage of some locations over others.
Other descriptions of silos. Facts in regard to best preservation of
ensilage 23
CHAPTER V.
BUILDING OF SILOS OF D1FERENT SIZES AND FORMS, GIVING
CAPACITY AND CONTENTS OF SAME.
Material most suitable for building silos. Construction of silos in the
earth by digging trenches. Various experiments of different forms and
kinds; most successful one given. Diagram and description of silo;
diagram of silo with two compartments, full description given. Sizes
of silo; capacity, and number of stock it will feed. Full description
given how to build silos ; diagram for the foundation ; also diagram
showing how to build walls. Showing quantities and proportions of
cement, lime, gravel, stone ; giving full particulars, so that any farmer
can build a silo. Description of other silos already built ; diagrams
given. Sectional silos 25
10
CONTENTS. 11
CHAPTER VI.
MY PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE AT ECHO DALE FARM WITH ENSILAGE
AND SILOS.
PAGE
Why I built a silo. Ensilaging of rye and grass. Filling a silo. Kind of
corn, and quantity per acre planted. Building of silo, location of silo,
dimensions and capacity. Material used. First time the farmer fills
a silo. Kind of fodder-cutter and power used. Description of start-
ing with horse-power. Number of men, and how employed in filling
silo. Quantity cut per day for ensilage. Full description of filling and
covering ensilage in silo. Best time to cut corn-fodder for ensilage.
Chemical changes of ensilage. Opening of silo, and condition of ensi-
lage. Changes of ensilage after taken from silo. Feeding cattle with
ensilage. Condition of stock fed on ensilage. Increase of milk.
Quality and flavor of butter. Daily rations of cattle. Preparing of
ground for second crop. Building of more silos 31
CHAPTER VII.
FILLING THE SILO.
Kind of power required. Best machine for cutting fodder. Price of engine
and boiler; price of fodder-cutter. Best way for farmers who cut no
more than a hundred to two hundred tons, showing how to have fodder
cut and not invest money for power in full. Full description of filling
silos given. When fodder should be cut; most suitable lengths. The
great number of parties corresponded with, showing in every case a per-
fect success of the workings of silos and ensilage 36
CHAPTER VIII.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM J. J. H. GREGORY.
His opinion of ensilage. Kind of corn he recommends to plant for ensilage;
his reasons for it; best way of planting and working corn. Weight of
stalks that he has grown. Number of tons to the acre. Advantages
of this process given 38
CHAPTER IX.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM GEORGE L. CLEMENCE.
Planting corn; time to plant; kind of corn. Winter rye for ensilage.
Product per acre of corn-fodder. Cost per acre. Machine used for
cutting; power used; length to cut. Construction of silo; material for
building silos. Description of filling silos. Cost per ton for ensilage
from seed to packing in silos. Mixture of rowen with, corn-fodder in
silo. Opening of silo, and condition of the contents. Feeding of
stock, and the results; quantity, and how often fed. Effect of ensilage
upon milk and butter. Quantity of ensilage to keep a cow six months.
Experiments in feeding stock. Appearance of cattle fed on ensilage.
Feeding of English hay and ensilage compared. Great advantages
by ensilage 39
CHAPTER X.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM B. AUSTIN AVERY.
Planting corn, kind to plant. Cost per acre. Average yield per acre.
Kind of cutter and power used: length to cut. Building of silo; size,
cost, and location. Cutting and packing in the silo. Cost per ton of
ensilage in silo. Important suggestions in filling silos. Opening of
silo. Quantity, and how fed. One hundred head of cattle fed on ensi-
lage; showing the effect on horses, calves, milch cows, etc. Fine appear-
ance of cattle fed on ensilage; increase of milk. Feeding of turkeys,
12 H. P. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
ducks, chickens, on ensilage; their fine condition. Showing a gain of
three thousand dollars for six months by keeping his stock on ensilage,
over any previous year. Cost of labor in feeding with ensilage com-
Eared with hay. Success of feeding cattle entirely on ensilage without
ay or grain. Ensilage the year round 44
CHAPTER XI.
THE ADVANTAGE OF GREEN FORAGE CROPS BY ENSILAGE OVER THE
SAME IN NATURAL OR GREEN STATE.
Cost of ensilaging two hundred and fifty tons, by Goffart; cost of same by
others. Value of ensilage as food. Comparative value of ensilage and
hay for feeding. Practical facts in regard to forage crops and ensilage.
Table of analysis, green fodder-corn and ensilage. Chemical changes;
advantages gained by this change. Its effect upon cows and sucking
calves. Mode of fattening cattle with ensilage; quantities and kind
given. Secret of the process, and the advantages 49
CHAPTER XII.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM CAPT. G. MORTON.
Kind of corn, and quantity planted per acre. Kinds of phosphate used.
Average yield per acre. Cost per acre of raising corn-fodder. Machine
used for cutting, and length to cut. Construction of silo; best form and
material to build silos. Experience with filling silos; mixing grasses
with corn-fodder. Cost per ton of raising and packing in silos. Open-
ing of silo, and appearance of ensilage. Mode of feeding, and results.
Effect of ensilage on milk and butter; comparative price of butter sold,
produced from ensilage, and price of butter made from hay. Quantity
of ensilage for each cow per day. Condition of cattle fed on ensilage.
Value of ensilage compared with hay ; showing ensilage to be worth as
much as hay, ton for ton. Experience of packing corn-fodder whole in
trenches; success of same 54
CHAPTER XIII.
CLARK W. MILLS' S CORRESPONDENCE.
Number of acres, and kind of corn planted; method of planting. Time of
cutting; length to cut. Size of silo. Cost of raising and packing in
silo. Condition of ensilage when taken from silo. Comparative cost
of ensilage with hay. Appearance of cattle fed on ensilage. Effect
of ensilage on the milk. Six hundred tons of ensilage packed for
less than five hundred dollars; value of this compared with hay.
Showing great success of ensilage ; wintering a hundred and twenty
head of horned cattle and twelve horses without a pound of hay.
Opinions of some of the most distinguished and influential men in" the
State of New York given. A revolution in dairy-farming, stock-raising . 58
CHAPTER XIV.
DR. L. w. CURTIS' s CORRESPONDENCE.
Mode of preparing land for corn. Planting and raising corn-fodder; kind
of corn to plant; quantity per acre. Average yield per acre. Best
cutting-machine; length to cut. Construction of silo; cost of silo; best
material for building silo; most suitable location. Experience with cut-
ting and packing corn-fodder ; with grasses, Hungarian and rowen.
Opening of silo, and appearance of ensilage. Quantity of ensilage to
keep a cow six months. Condition of cattle fed on ensilage. In re-
gard to the success of ensilage. Valuable suggestions given ... GO
CONTENTS. 13
CHAPTER XV.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM PROFESSOR J. M. M*BRYDE.
PAGE
Interest in the subject of ensilage, showing his practical knowledge.
Kind of corn to plant; about imported seed. Location of silos.
Descriptions and experiments with silos and ensilage. Kinds of stock
fed, horses, mules, cattle, pigs, etc. Ensilage compared with hay.
Practical hints given. Experiments with ensilage, showing chemical
changes 64
CHAPTER XVI.
CORRESPONDENCE OF F. E. LOUD.
Plan ting corn; kind of corn, and machine used for planting. Quantity of
corn-fodder raised per acre. Machine and kind of power used in cut-
ting; length to cut. Size of silo; construction of silo. Cutting and
packing in silos. Cost per ton to raise and pack in silo. Quantity
raised. Opening silo, and feeding ensilage to cattle. Cubic feet to a
ton. Experiments, and cost of feeding stock. Feeding grain with
ensilage; quantity of ensilage, and kind of grain given. Effect of en-
silage and hay upon milk and butter. Appearance of cattle fed on ensi-
lage. Cost of ensilage compared with hay. Comparative cost of feed-
ing ensilage and hay, showing great gain and advantage in favor of
ensilage 66
CHAPTER XVII.
CORRESPONDENCE OF WHITMAN AND BURRELL.
Number of acres planted, and quantity raised. More than one crop per
year on same land. Kind of cutter used. Length corn-fodder was cut.
Location, size, and capacity of silos. Material for building silo.
Filling the silo. Quantities and different kinds of grain with ensilage.
Cost of raising corn-fodder and filling the silo. Opening of silo.
Mode of feeding stock, and the results. Number of cattle that can be
kept the year round on fifteen acres of land. Comparative cost of
ensilage with hay, and number of tons of 'ensilage preserved, showing
a tremendous margin or gain in favor of ensilage. Great importance
of this system shown 67
CHAPTER XVIII.
CORRESPONDENCE OF J. P. GOODALE.
Planting and raising corn-fodder; kind of corn. Cost per acre. Average
quantity per acre. Cutting-machine and power used; length to cut
corn-fodder. Experience with silos. Most practical size and form of
silo; best material for building silos. Cutting and packing in silos.
Cost per ton of raising, and packing in silos. Opening of silo, and feed-
ing to stock. Quantity, and how often fed. Effect of ensilage upon
the milk and butter. Appearance of cattle fed on ensilage. Success
of ensilage; giving profit or gain in feeding twenty head of cattle with
ensilage compared with feeding same with hay, showing a very large
gain in favor of ensilage 75
CHAPTER XIX.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM BUCKLEY BROTHERS.
Length of corn cut. Size of silos; filling silos. Condition, color, and ap-
pearance of ensilage when taken from silos. How relished by cattle.
Cows, horses, sheep all eat it. Experiments in feeding. Great in-
crease of milk in quality and quantity 79
14 //. .R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
CHAPTER XX.
PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS WITH ENSILAGE, BY PROFESSOR M*BRYDE.
PAGE
First experiments; French experiments. Description of pit, or silo, dug in
the earth; neither bricked nor cemented. Full description of filling
and keeping ensilage in this pit. On opening this pit, and feeding cattle.
Description of silos built, and filling the same with corn-fodder and
clover. Cost of filling silos. Weight of ensilage per cubic foot.
Weight of cubic foot of clover ensilaged. Description of silo. No. 3, and
filling same with corn-fodder, clover, hay, straw, and German millet.
Results and experiments of ensilaging corn or grasses in the naked clay
or earth. Description of soils; reasons why it keeps better. Chemical
changes of ensilage while in silo 81
CHAPTER XXI.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM JAMES S. CHAFFEE.
Planting corn; kind, quantity, and cost per acre. Product per acre. Cut-
ting-machine used. Length to cut corn-fodder. Size of silo; most
suitable form and size, and best material to build silos. Cost per ton
of raising, and packing in silo. Condition of ensilage when taken from
silo; how cattle appeared when first fed. Experience in feeding stock;
how often fed. Quantity to keep a cow six months. General appear-
ance of cattle fed on ensilage. A test of milk tried, of cows fed on
ensilage and on hay. Superior importance of this subject over all others
in farming 86
CHAPTER XXII.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM O. B. POTTER.
Number of years Mr. Potter has practised ensilage. Time to cut; length
to cut. Size of silos; description and diagram of sectional silos. Fill-
ing of silos. Cutting-machine and power used. Opening of silos and
condition of ensilage. Feeding ensilage and different grains and quan-
tities to all kinds of stock. increase of milk. Appearance of stock
fed on ensilage. Feeding ensilage compared with dry fodder. Supe-
rior food. Feeding of sheep on ensilage. Two crops per year on same
land. Success in preserving fodder. Mixing fodder in the pits. Ensi-
lage superior to soiling 89
CHAPTER XXIII.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM JACOB PUGSLEY.
Variety of corn to plant. Cost of corn-fodder per acre. Average yield per
acre. Cutter used; length to cut. Size of silo; best form and size and
material for silo. Cutting and packing in silo. Cost per ton of filling
silo. Ensilage when taken from silo. Feeding, and the results; expo-
sure to the air. Quantity per cow per day. Gain in milk. Cattle fed
on ensilage. Feeding on ensilage the year round. Four essential points
for farmers to bear in mind. Advantages and profits of ensilage . . 94
CHAPTER XXIV.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM F. S. PEER.
Corn-fodder; kind and quantity to plant. Kind of cutter and power used.
Length to cut. Size of silo; experience with silos. Cutting, and pack-
ing in silos. Number of tons put in silo per day. Opening of silo, and
condition of ensilage. Quantity fed, and how often. Effect of ensilage
on milk and butter. Feeding with ensilage compared with other fodder.
Feeding of all kinds of stock cows, cattle, sheep, calves, and colts
on ensilage. Total cost of ensilage 99
CONTENTS. 15
CHAPTER XXV.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM W. C. STRONG.
PAGE
Experiments with Hungarian grass for ensilage. Packing Hungarian in silo
without cutting; result of the same. Another experiment of twelve
acres Hungarian. Experimenting ne\v grasses. Cutting and packing
same in silo. Cattle are wild to get tins fodder; cheapest food ever fed
out. Beneficial results of this process (ensilage). A new era in agri-
culture. Changes which no one can foretell 102
CHAPTER XXVI.
REPORT FROM HON. CHARLES WILLIAMS, NASHUA, N.H.
Description of silo. Filling of silo. Cutter used- Length to cut corn-fod-
der. Opening of silo. Feeding of cows, hogs, and poultry . . . 104
CHAPTER XXVII.
REPORT FROM DR. W. H. TANNER, AMENIA, DUTCHESS COUNTY, N.Y.
Building of silo. Number of acres and kind of corn planted. Opening of
silo. Feeding cattle. Success of ensilage. What farmers must do.
Feeding a hundred cows, with best results ... ... 105
CHAPTER XXVIII.
REPORT FROM GEN. STEPHEN THOMAS OF VERMONT.
Building of silo. Way it was built. Fodder-cutter and power used.
Comparative value of ensilage with hay. Cost of silo . . . .106
CHAPTER XXIX.
REPORT FROM HON. J. B. BODWELL, PINE GROVE FARM, HALLO-
WELL, MAINE.
Number of tons put in silo. Feeding to cattle and sheep. Manner of feed-
ing. Three important points in regard to ensilage. A good silo . . 107
CHAPTER XXX.
REPORT FROM MR. E. D. WORKS, FITCIIBURG, MASS.
Cutter used. Length and quantity cut. Filling the silo. Opening the
silo. Success of ensilage. Cost of ensilage. Other grasses for en-
silage 108
CHAPTER XXXI.
REPORT FROM COL. R. H. DULANEY OF LOUDOUN COUNTY, MD.
Number of acres prepared and planted for corn-fodder. Sjze of silo. Fill-
ing the silo. Opening of the silo. Eighty-two cattle, two hundred
ewes, feeding on ensilage. Great success iii feeding sheep, ewes with
lambs 10<
CHAPTER XXXII.
REPORT FROM MADAME RUDERSDORFF.
Has silo and ensilage. Ensilage compared w r ith English hay. Quality and
quantity of milk, fed on ensilage Ill
16 T. It. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
CHAPTER XXXIII.
REPORT FROM E. M. WASHBURN OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY.
PAGE
Has silo and ensilage. Hay and ensilage compared. Ensilage as an invest-
ment. No reason why thousands of farmers may not make it as profit-
able as I have Ill
CHAPTER XXXIV.
FEEDING OF STOCK.
Different ways that farmers feed. A very economical way of feeding.
Different" ways of feeding with ensilage and grains. Most economical
way given. Best way to fatten cattle with ensilage and grains. Most
natural food with ensilage and grasses Ill
CHAPTER XXXY.
ENSILAGE FOR POULTRY.
How poultry relish ensilage. Appearance and results, fed on ensilage.
Experiments, feeding poultry on ensilage. Cost of feeding poultry.
Products of a hundred fowl per year, fed on ensilage. Products of one
acre of land of ensilage. Showing how a cow and two hundred fowl
can be kept from an acre of land on ensilage, by practical experiments . 112
CHAPTER XXXYI.
EXPERIMENTS IN FEEDING STOCK.
Very valuable and interesting experiments of feeding sixteen head of cattle
"for the month of January, 1881, giving the number of each animal, daily
rations of each, weight of each, first of month, weight of each, end of
month, gain per month, gain per day, gain per cent; every pound of hay,
ensilage, straw, corn-meal, rice-corn meal, cotton-seed meal, the quanti-
ties and weight of each being given; kind of cattle described: making a
very thorough and instructing experiment for a farmer .... 114
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Cuts and descriptive of forage plants: red clover, Hungarian grass, common
millet, lucerne 116
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Cash premiums offered for the largest yield of fodder-corn per acre . . . 119
CHAPTER XXXIX.
CONCLUSION . 120
H. R STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
CHAPTER I.
WHAT MAKES THE FARMERS HAPPY?
THE reason is this, by reading this book and following the practical
experience of other farmers, who say to all the farmers of the United
States, The time has come, brother farmer, when you can earn two
dollars at half of the expense that you before earned one dollar, that
is, by preserving our green crops by ensilage, by turning our winters
into summers for the feeding of our stock ; by giving our cows, in
the cold winters, food and nutrition that is equal, if not superior,
to the green grass that grows in the warm sunny days of June ; and
the result is, in the winter months we have increased quantities of
milk, richer in quality, giving us butter of rich color and fine flavor,
equalled only by our June butter. And this preserved fodder makes
our cattle look better, they thrive better, the young stock will thrive
better, they grow faster ; in fact, they do better than when turned
into a good pasture in the month of June. And we can and do
obtain these great advantages at less cost, less trouble and incon-
venience.
The saving is so great, that we can keep four cows upon better food
at no more expense than we have kept one cow. There are other
advantages by preserving our green crops for ensilage.
We are not likely to lose a good part of our forage crop on account
of the weather. We can cut our green crops of maize, of rye, of
clover, of the grasses, and immediately, while filled with the rich
17
18 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
juices, they are placed in silos: there is no waiting for a bright
sunny day, or a good " hay-day." They are preserved for ensilage :
they not only retain, but by the slight chemical change that takes
place there is an improvement over, the natural production. Our
stock say so when they eat it so greedily, their looks show it : that is
proof enough. There is no theory about it : the practical proof we
have. For one, I believe that is what the farmer wants ; and the day
is near at hand for the farmer, when he will say, not as he inquires
to-day, ''Who has built a silo for ensilage ?" but the question will
be, " Who has not got a silo for ensilage? "
"SILO," " ENSILAGE," DEFINED. 19
CHAPTER II.
"SILO," "ENSILAGE," DEFINED.
A SILO is a pit or well, vat or cistern, the sides and bottom being
made water- tight, with an open top. They can be made of stone,
brick, concrete, or wood. Some have been made by simply excavating
the earth, sides and bottom being cemented ; where the earth is com-
pact, it has been successfully used, without any thing being done to
the sides and bottom of this earth-pit, or silo. The walls are perpen-
dicular, made so smooth upon their inner sides as to offer no obstacle
to the settling or compacting of the ensilage by friction of the sides.
This silo is for the preservation of the green forage crops, corn,
Hungarian grass, clover, rye, oats, millet, and all the grasses. The
food thus preserved in silos, or pits, is called ensilage.
The origin of the word ' ' silo ' ' is undoubtedly French, the term
being compounded of the two words, " en " (in) and " silo " (a pit).
In adopting and developing the old process, known in different coun-
tries under various names, the French re-christened it by applying
the term "ensilage," both to the act or mode of preservation and
its product, using the term necessarily both as a verb and a noun.
20 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
CHAPTER III.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
0". IMT. DV
PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE, AJSD BOTAJSTT,
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE.
A TREATISE ON THE ORIGIN OF THE PROCESS OF ENSILAGE.
THE farming community is becoming greatly excited on the subject
of ensilage. Every agricultural paper fairly bristles with notices,
references, or accounts of experiments ; and the process already
boasts of a tolerably copious literature of its own. There seems to
be, in this country at least, considerable misapprehension on this
point. Two entirely distinct processes are strangely confounded, -
"ensilage" and "ensilage of maize." A Frenchman, Goffart, is
generally regarded as the person to whom the agricultural world is
indebted, not only for the origination and development of the ensilage
of maize, but also for the discovery and development of the process
of ensilage itself. The gentleman himself seems to clearly distin-
guish between the two, advancing no claims to the discovery of ensi-
lage, while boasting in no measured terms of having developed and
perfected the ensilage of maize, speaking of it as a " monument to
his fame, more enduring than brass."
I have been greatly surprised at never having seen, in any of the
numerous articles upon this subject, some mention of the mode of
preserving grass for forage, as practised many years ago in East
Prussia. This process is fully described by Grieswald (1842) ; and
a translation of the passage is given in Stevens J s large work, "The
Farmer's Guide," which appeared in 1851, the year before Goffart
began his experiments. The process as therein detailed is so similar
ORIGIN AND PROCESS OF ENSILAGE. 21
to that which Goffart has developed, even in the minutest particulars,
if we substitute fine grass for finely-cut corn, that I could hardly
describe the French method better than by giving, as I do, the
extract in full.
44 A curious mode of preserving grass for forage, instead of making;
it into hay, has been tried in Germany, in East Prussia; and it is
this : Pits are dug in the earth, ten feet or twelve feet square and as
many deep. They are puddled with clay, and lined with wood or
brick. Into these pits four or five hundred weight of grass, as it is
cut, are put in. a layer at a time, sprinkled with salt at the rate of
one pound to one hundred weight, and if the grass is dry. that is,
free of rain or dew, two or three quarts of water are sprinkled over
the layer. Each layer is trodden down by five or six men, and
rammed firm, especially round the edges, with wooden rammers, the
object of which is the exclusion of air. A little straw is then scat-
tered over the layer to mark its dimensions afterwards. Layer is
placed above layer till the pit is filled to the top, when the topmost
layer is well salted, and the pit covered with boards, or a well-fitted
lid. upon which is put a covering of earth of one and a half feet in
thickness. Such a pit will contain five layers of grass, and should be
filled in two days. The grass soon ferments, and in about six days
subsides to half its original bulk. The lid is examined every day,
and every crack in the earth filled up to exclude the air, which, if
allowed to enter, would promote the putrefactive fermentation in the
grass. When the first fermentation has ceased, the lid is taken off,
and fresh grass put in. trodden down, and salted as before. The pit
will now contain about ten tons of grass, equal to two or three tons
of hay. The pits should remain shut for six weeks before being
used, and then are used in succession. The grass thus treated has
the appearance of having been boiled, and its sharp acid taste is very
agreeable to cattle ; and twenty pounds a day with chopped straw
will keep a cow in good condition all winter, and twenty-eight pounds
will cause a cow to give a rich and well- tasted milk."
After reading this passage we are almost tempted to exclaim with
Solomon, " Truly there is nothing new under the sun." It reads as
if freshly taken from the pages of Goffart. Here we have modifica-
tions and improvements only arrived at by the Frenchman after years
of patient experimentation. The dimensions of the pit, the impor-
tance of the thorough exclusion of air, the puddling with clay (almost
similar to cementing) in order to effect this, the use of soft, fresh
22 H. It. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
grass, the sprinkling with salt, the heavy packing down, the impor-
tance of succulent, un wilted grass, the board covering, the continuous
descending pressure of the weight of earth, which Goffart calls the
grand secret of the process and the most indispensable element of
success, discovered only after repeated experiments on his part,
the refilling of the pit after short intervals of time in order to econo-
mize space, the appearance of the preserved grass (ensilage), the
acid taste, are all points especially noticed in this old account, written
nearly half a century ago.
From all this we must conclude that the process, even in its most
essential features, is undoubtedly an old one, revived after lying dor-
mant and unnoticed for years. But, as the merit of the perfecter is but
slightly inferior to that of the inventor, great praise is certainly due
to those gentlemen who have by their labors in recent years brought
again into prominence a system which is so full of promise. In this
connection, the committee appointed by the Central Agricultural
Society of France to report upon the subject of ensilage of maize,
very properly observe, " The world is so old, necessity has so long
compelled the efforts of human beings, that we find precedents in
every line of improvement. But all experienced men who know the
great difference which separates a happy suggestion, or even a suc-
cessful attempt, from a practice well enough confirmed to become the
base of a regular business, will admit that these precedents do not
destroy the merit of any man who, like Monsieur A. Goffart, has
accomplished a continued success."
Whatever question, however, may arise as to the origin of the pro-
cess, there can be none as to the name. This is undoubtedly French ;
the term being compounded of the two words, "en" (in) and
" silo " (a pit). In adopting and developing the old process, known
in different countries under various names, the French re-christened
it by applying the term " ensilage," both to the act (or mode) of
preservation and its product, using the term necessarily both as a
verb and a noun. This name to American ears is pretentious,
unmeaning, and confusing. Our farmers would far more readily
understand English terms more descriptive of the process and its
product, terms similar to " canning" fruits or vegetables, " pre-
serving," " pickling," etc., and " canned " fruits, '* preserves,"
" pickles," etc. They would all be more attracted by the terms, " to
pit corn," " pitting corn," " pitted corn," " to pit clover," " pitting
LOCATION OF SILOH. 23
clover," " pitted clover," etc., or even, " to bury corn," " burying
corn," " buried corn," etc.
This system, then, is no longer an experiment : it is one approved
of by the experience of years, it may be of centuries ; and even its
more recent application to the preservation of Indian corn has been
thoroughly and successfully tried in France and elsewhere by hun-
dreds of enterprising farmers.
CHAPTEK IV.
LOCATION OF SILOS.
THE location of a silo should be as near the barn as possible,
for convenience and saving of labor in feeding stock. With many
farmers who have a barn basement, a silo can be built in the same,
and made quite convenient for feeding their stock. As many base-
ments of this kind are not over eight or nine feet high, it would be
practicable to excavate or dig to the required depth, if the surround-
ings will allow it ; or the silo could be built up through the barn floor,
say two, three or four feet, and, with an eight or nine feet basement,
would give a fair depth to a silo of this kind and size.
Some have made silos under the carriage-house which is connected
with their barn, and made very good ones. In locating a silo, the
top part of the silo should come near the level of the barn-floor,
or where the fodder-cutter will stand, so that it will drop right into
the silo. If your barn is situated on a side-hill slope, and your stock
are kept in the basement of the barn, by building your silo on the
upper side, and, when your fodder is cut, drops into the silo, your
door opening out of the silo into the basement, you have a very con-
venient location of silo for all work, and also a silo that will be of
the right degree of temperature for the preserving of ensilage ; as I
consider a silo under ground, or mostly under ground, better adapted
to the extreme high temperature and extreme low temperature of our
climate. In a soil that is naturally dry, a silo can be placed at the
required depth. In some locations where it is naturally wet, or
where, by going to the depth of five or six feet, you come to water,
it would be better, to get the required height, to build partly above
24 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
the surface. With many who have basements under their barns, a
silo, or pit, could be made outside, close to the basement-wall, located
in a place where it would be most convenient to use in the basement,
or otherwise, by making a passage-way to the pit, or silo, through the
foundation walls of the barn. Any form or construction of silos, or
pits, which answers the location and condition may be used, such as
pits or wells, open only at the top, the food being put in and taken
out from the top only. Such silos, or pits, would have the advantage,
that successive croppings might be put in the same pit, or silo, one
above the other, each being sealed with a layer of earth when put
in. The deeper the silo, or pit, the more they will contain in propor-
tion to measurement, owing to the greater density of the contents
from the weight of the mass above ; and, the greater the pressure,
the more thorough the exclusion of the air, and, without any doubt,
the better preservation of the ensilage.
THE BUILDING OF SILOS. 25
CHAPTER V.
THE BUILDING OF SILOS OF DIFFERENT SIZES AND FORMS, GIVING
THE CAPACITY AND CONTENTS OF SAME.
SILOS can be built of stone, brick, concrete, wood, or earth. Some
have been made by simply excavating the earth, sides and bottom
being cemented ; where the earth is compact, it has been successfully
used, without any thing being done to the sides and bottom of this
earth-pit, or silo. Silos, or pits, are sometimes merely trenches, a few
feet in depth and width, into which the corn-fodder is closely packed,
and then carried vertically upwards above ground to the height of
four or five feet, and carefully covered by heaping dirt over the sides
and top to the thickness of eighteen to twenty-four inches. The
chief drawback to the use of such pits is their liability to cave in
when emptied of ensilage in the spring. One silo is described as a
well thirty feet deep, walled up and cemented, and furnished with a
windlass and rope for raising the ensilage to the surface. Many
build silos parallel to each other, with a common wall between, so
that they can be used in succession. Another form is described as
an elongated cylinder, arched over the top in the direction of its
greatest length, after the manner of a cistern, and with only a nar-
row opening left along the crest of this arch, through which the
corn-fodder is delivered ; and it is closed by a single covering of
earth after the pit is filled.
Another correspondent states here that he has experimented for a
number of years past with brewers' grain, endeavoring to discover
the best mode of keeping it. He has tried stone, brick, and ce-
mented vaults, barrels, and wooden vats, and found none to compare
with pits dug in a clay or other good soil. He is inclined to attrib-
ute the superiority of these to the preservative action of the soil
itself.
A very good silo is one built of concrete. It costs but little more
to build a good silo than it does a poor one. A well-built silo of
good material is the cheapest and safest. Professor E. W. Stewart
advocates to build it of water-lime concrete. First, having exca-
vated for the silo, dig a trench all around the bottom, and fill in with
26 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
cobble-stones, and from one corner lead a drain, if possible, so as to
carry off all the water ; the trench under the proposed walls of silo
being filled with cobble-stones as per diagram.
Place standards of scantling long enough to extend twelve inches
higher than the top of the wall when it is finished. Place these
standards on each side of the proposed wall as per diagram annexed ;
L
11
oa. 3 x 4 inch scantling to hold ! inch plank while building wall. bb. Doors.
and if you desire the wall to be eighteen inches thick, then place the
standards twenty-two inches apart, and place a pair of standards
every five or six feet around the entire foundation. Be particular to
have these standards exactly plumb and exactly in line ; fasten the
THE BUILDING OF SILOS. 27
bottom of standards firmly in the ground, or by nailing a strip of
wood across at the bottom of the standards, and a little below where
the floor of the silo will be ; fasten the tops of the standards by a,
heavy cross-piece securely nailed, and fasten the pairs of standards
in their plumb position by shores reaching the bank outside. Now
take plank an inch and a half or two inches thick and fourteen, inches
wide, and place them edgeways inside the standards twenty inches
apart, thus forming a box fourteen inches deep, and running all along
and around the entire foundation of the proposed wall. Fill this box
with alternate layers of cobble-stones, or any rough stones, and mor-
tar or concrete ; first a layer of concrete, mortar, and then a layer
of stones ; not allowing the stones to come quite out to the boxing-
plank, but having concrete over the edges, and the concrete must be
stamped or rammed down solid. Prepare the concrete as follows :
Take one part of good cement (Portland is the best probably), and
mix with this four parts of sand (do not have the sand too fine,
rather coarse), and mix the cement thoroughly with the sand while
dry, and then mix four parts of clear gravel ; make into a thin
mortar, and use at once. Put into the box an inch or two of this
mortar, and then bed in cobble-stones, then fill in with mortar, again
covering the stones, and again put in a layer of stone. When the
box is filled and the mortar " set," so that the wall is firm, then
raise the box one foot, leaving two inches lap of plank on wall below,
and go around again, raising the wall one foot each day, every second
day, according to amount of labor at hand.
If one-half the bulk of finely-stocked quick-lime is added to the
water-lime, it will improve it, and costs but little. If Rosendale or
Akron cement is used instead of Portland, then proportions should
be as follows : One barrel of good live cement, three barrels of good
sand, three barrels of good clean gravel. If no gravel is obtainable,
then use five barrels of sand to one of cement, and bed in all the
cobble-stones possible. Stones with rough edges are better than
smooth, as they bind the wall more thoroughly ; but any flat stones
found about fields will do as well. A layer of loose cobble-stones
should be placed against the outside of the wall before the earth is
brought against it, so as to have an air space, and a free passage for
water. We think that stone walls two feet thick, plastered with
Portland cement, are better than concrete ; and, where people can
afford to build of stone, they had better do so. As most farmers
have plenty of stone on their farms, they can haul and lay the stones
28 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
themselves : if they hire the walls plastered with cement, it would
give them a good silo at a very low price. After the walls are fin-
ished, then level the bottom of the silo, giving a coating of coarse
gravel, then take the same mixture of cement, sand, and gravel, mix
it well in a mortar-bed, then add the water, mixing it well to the
consistency to spread well, evenly, two or three inches thick : smooth
it as you spread it, give it plenty of time to harden and dry. You
will have a solid bottom that will last for years, and no water will
ever get through it. Leave an opening in the upper part of wall, of
suitable size for a door, to take out ensilage to feed to your cows.
Have matched boards or plank to fill this opening : while filling your
silo let these boards bear on the inside of the wall ; as you place
them, have cement or mortar to bed them against the wall. The
ensilage bearing upon will keep them in place. By so doing, your
ensilage will be all right about the door.
If your silo is not under cover, you will want a roof over it. Have
it tight, to keep out all rain and snow ; any kind of a roof that will
shed water will answer.
A good silo will cost from seventy-five cents to $1.25 per ton.
Much depends upon the location and the convenience of getting ma-
terial to build the silo. Build a good silo, or none : it will pay to do
so, if you are obliged to borrow money to build.
Silos will have to be built many times to conform to the location ;
but, where the location and surroundings will admit, they should be
built rectangular in form, the annexed diagram giving the size and
form, which is twenty-five feet long, eleven feet wide, and fifteen feet
deep. This will hold one hundred and three tons, allowing forty
cubic feet to the ton ; which is the correct weight of a cubic foot
after the ensilage has settled in the silo.
THE BUILDING OF SILOS.
29
This quantity will keep nine cows for one year, allowing sixty
pounds of ensilage per day, or eighteen cows six months, or during
the winter season.
A very convenient form of silo is one with two compartments :
one could be filled early in September with corn, second crops of
grass (rowen), and the other early in June, in our climate, with rye
or clover ; as will be understood by annexed diagram, which repre-
sents a horizontal section of two silos, or one silo with two compart-
ments ; each compartment being thirty feet long, ten feet wide, fifteen
feet deep with an eighteen-inch wall running through the centre,
making the width twenty-one feet and six inches. Both of these silos
when filled will hold two hundred and twenty-five tons, or one silo
will hold one hundred and twelve and a half tons. Both of these
compartments when filled would feed seventeen cows for one year,
or thirty-four for six months during the winter season ; or one com-
partment filled, holding one hundred and twelve and a half tons, would
feed out seventeen cows during the winter season. You will build
your silo to conform to the number of stock you wish to keep. If
you have ten cows, and you wish to increase to twenty, you had bet-
ter build your silo of suitable size to feed twenty. To get at the
exact size of silo to feed any number of cows you wish to keep, you
will multiply together the length, breadth, and depth of your intended
silo, which gives you the cubical contents of the silo. Multiply that
product by forty, as there are forty pounds of ensilage to a cubic
foot, which gives the number of pounds of ensilage in the silo when
filled. Divide this product by twenty-one thousand nine hundred
pounds, that being the quantity to keep one cow a year : this will give
you the number of cows it will feed.
30
//. I?. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
Other forms of silo can be built with more compartments, if de-
sired. Messrs. Whitman and Burrell recommend, for one hundred
cows, a silo of suitable size to divide into three compartments, by
means of cross- walls, and then feed out one silo at a time : this
would provide an empty silo in the spring, which would be ready for
the winter rye, clover, June grass, which could be harvested early in
June, cut up same as corn-fodder,
and stored in silos for summer feed-
ing. Mr. O. B. Potter of New York
makes a series of silos, or pits, in sec-
tions as annexed diagram, which rep-
resents a horizontal section of pits
thus constructed, taken through the
doorways near the bottom of the pits.
Each one of these sections, or silos,
will hold seventy-five tons. The
twelve will hold nine hundred tons.
The entrance-pit will hold one hundred
and fifty tons. Each section is twen-
ty feet long, ten feet wide, and fifteen
feet deep. The entrance-pit is forty
feet in length, fifteen feet deep, and
ten feet wide.
STABLE. It will be seen, from this construc-
tion, that as many tiers of piers may
be made, end to end, at right angles to the first or entrance-pit,
as may be required and space allow ; and that, after the contents of
this first or entrance-pit are fed out, each of the other row of pits
may be opened and fed out, one pit at a time ; and that only the sur-
face of the food at the end of the one pit which is being fed will
at any time be exposed to the air until the whole are fed out.
ENTRANCE-PIT.
EXPERIENCE AT ECHO DALE FARM. 31
CHAPTER VI.
MY PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE AT ECHO DALE FARM WITH ENSILAGE
AND SILOS.
AFTER reading Mr. Brown's translation of M. Goffart's publi-
cations, I resolved to have a silo of suitable size to fairly test the
preserving of green fodder corn for ensilage. As 1 read several
articles in different agricultural papers, I became deeply interested
upon the subject of ensilage. I visited, early in June last year,
Dr. Bailey's farm in Billerica. The doctor's farm is some four miles
from the station. Fortunately I met the doctor at the station, he
having arrived on the same train. The doctor's carriage was in wait-
ing : he invited me to ride with him to his farm. After a very pleas-
ant chat on the way upon the subject of silos, ensilage, etc., we
arrived at the farm. He was then ensilaging his rye, and mixing
through it the fresh-cut grass from the mowing-field : as the rye was
getting quite dry to be cut for ensilage, he had a continual stream of
water running through a hose with a rose-bib on the end of the hose,
and the water dropping upon the cut rye and grass as it dropped into
the silo. This water discharging into the silo answered two purposes :
it made the cut rye and grass more compact as it was spread and
tramped down, also it helped fill the air-cells of the dry stalk of the
rye ; by so doing it helped to exclude the air, which, with pressure,
in thoroughly excluding the air, is the success of preserving the
ensilage. In company with other visitors, Dr. Bailey showed us
over his farm : all seemed interested in his fine flock of Cotswold
sheep, his breed of Berkshires, which are the pure clean breed.
The short time there was passed very pleasantly, for all farmers
take pleasure in looking at good thoroughbred stock.
On the last of June, after waiting some two weeks, hoping it might
rain, I ploughed about two acres of greensward : and it seemed to me
I never saw the ground dryer ; it was like ashes. I prepared the
ground, planted my corn in drills (which was, by the way, corn I
purchased of Dr. Bailey, five dollars per bushel), rows four feet
apart, kernels three and four inches apart. Considering the ex-
cessive dry weather, the corn yielded very well. From what we
82 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
weighed, I calculated we had twenty-five tons per acre. I fed a
part of this, cut up green, to my cows, the balance for my silo. I
planted a small piece on lower ground, where the yield was at the
rate of fifty tons to the acre. The stalks averaged twelve feet in
height.
I built my silo in the basement of my barn, sixteen feet long,
twelve feet wide, twelve feet deep. As it was an experiment with
me, I made the size of silo to conform to the location. The walls
were made of brick, one foot thick, well laid in cement, with door
placed near the top, six feet deep, three feet wide, facing in towards
the tie-up for the cows. I made, besides this, a smaller silo one-half
the capacity, to test the keeping of ensilage in small quantities ; but,
before I had the larger one entirely filled, I saw I should have but
little left to fill the small one. I would say to the farmer, the first
time you fill a silo you will wonder, and say, " I don't see where so
much of it is packed away," if your silo is large or small. I then
purchased a one-horse railway power, and a Baldwin fodder-cutter.
My barn is located on a south-east slope side-hill, giving me a twelve-
foot basement, entrance on south side, the main entrance to the first
floor, north-west side ; here I placed my horse-power and cutting-
machine, and made a good-sized trap-door through the floor. The
corn, when cut, dropped through the trap-door into the silo.
I shall mention in another part of this book in regard to power to
be used.
As a great number of persons wished me to let them know when
the silo was to be filled, I notified several of our Boston dailies, and
the following appeared: u Dr. H. R. Stevens, of Echo Dale Farm,
Dover, Mass., will be ensilaging corn every day this week ; and an
invitation is given to all persons interested wishing to witness the
operation. Trains leave Boston and Albany Depot, 8 A.M., 12.15
P.M. ; return, 1.30, 4.30 P.M. ;" and, from the great numbers who
came, I was surprised to see so much interest taken in this enter-
prise. For my railway horse-power, I built a platform of two-inch
plank, nailed strips of inch boards about four inches wide across the
plank, made the platform two feet wider at the bearing on the ground
than the top part. In doing so you make every thing safe in getting
in and out your horse. After you have once tried it, you will see the
importance of it. I used a horse that -had formerly been a very
valuable carriage-horse : although now sixteen years old, he has as
much life as any horse six years old. This horse-power was new
EXPERIENCE AT ECHO DALE FARM. 33
business to me. With care, my horse went into tread-power without
any trouble. After one hour's work, you would think he was an old
hand at it. Every thing worked finely.
As I did not wish to use a steam-engine, on account of sparks of
fire from the boiler (for one, I am afraid of fire, around my barn,
especially in very dry weather) , I kept one man in the silo, treading
and distributing the cut fodder ; a part of the time two men, one
man to feed the cutter, one to cut up the fodder, one man to haul
the fodder from the field, the one cutting to help load. I used a
clump-cart with quite high side-boards. By using the last, it could
be tipped up by the side of the cutter, and save once handling. By
so doing, all were kept at work. I mention this : perhaps some might
think not important ; but I think it is, as many farmers of limited
means, or farmers who do not want or cannot have an engineer to
run an engine, will use the horse-power. The horse-power can be
put to many uses on a farm : you can saw wood enough in one day
for your house to last all winter, for it gladdens the farmer's wife to
see a large pile of wood drying nicely for winter use.
We continued cutting from four, to five hours per day for four
days. As visitors were coming every day, I was in no hurry. We
were filling the silo from two to three feet each day. I found every
morning, after the day's work, the cut corn- fodder would be quite
warm to the depth of one to two inches. Just before I commenced
to fill in the morning, I sprinkled four or five pails of water evenly
over the cut fodder : it cooled it, and arrested fermentation. When
the silo was filled, I spread evenly over the top oat-straw to the depth
of six to eight inches. I then placed two-inch plank crosswise of
the silo, leaving about half an inch play on each end of the plank,
to be free while settling with the corn-fodder. I placed on the top
of the plank good-sized stones, about one foot deep.
I found by trials, we could cut, with one-horse power, twenty-five
tons per day. Where there are large silos to be filled, say two hun-
hundred tons or more, steam-power with heavy cutter will do double
the work ; or a two-horse tread-power, with suitable cutter, will cut
forty to fifty tons per day. I think the fodder, when it is in bloom
or fully tasselled, is in the best condition to cut for ensilage.
I cut my corn-fodder in one-half inch pieces : some cut three-
eiq-litlis to four-tenths of an inch. The shorter it is cut, there is no
doubt of its packing closer ; the shorter the cut, the slower the work
in cutting. The process of filling a silo is very simple and easily
34 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
practised : have plenty of pressure ; and, as the mass settles, it be-
comes air-tight, with the chemical change that takes place, forming
carbonic acid gas, which fills the interstices, thereby preventing the
oxygen from forwarding fermentation. I have no doubt the ensilage,
while in this condition, may be preserved for years. I opened my
silo early in December. I removed the stone and first plank near
the door, then removed the straw which was next to the ensilage.
The lower part of the straw, and about two inches on the top of the
ensilage, had partially decayed, and was unfit to feed to cattle. I
then sliced down the ensilage the width of the plank, removed it
from the silo. I found the preservation of the corn-fodder good ;
some parts had changed to a light brown color, mostly the leaves of
the stalk ; the pith of the stalks were as white as when first cut for
silo ; after exposure to the air for a few minutes, it brightened up,
the color was more of a light green, the odor and taste was alcoholic
and slightly vinous, from that taken off near the top. All below
this was very sweet, with the natural taste of the corn-fodder. The
ensilage was in a good state of preservation throughout the silo.
The slight chemical change that takes place in well-preserved ensi-
lage in the silo assimilates, or causes the ensilage to appear slightly
cooked or partly steamed. By this chemical change the ensilage,
when fed and eaten by cattle, is more easily digested. For that rea-
son, I say the ensilage is more beneficial to stock : they like it, thrive
better, and do better than when fed upon the same corn-fodder cut up
fresh from the field.
In feeding the ensilage to stock, they ate it very well, cows, year-
lings, and calves, except one Jersey, who, in a day or two, ate it
well. My cows have a good, warm, well-ventilated basement of my
barn, and I thought they looked as well as they could : they have the
best of care, well fed, well bedded, thoroughly carded and brushed
every day, and their hide and hair as clean and sleek as any horse,
and I did not expect they would look any better, if quite as well ;
but I must say I never saw them looking as well as they do at the
present time. They have less grain than when fed upon hay. They
are fat enough for the butcher, look sleek and bright, their hide is
loose ; and every farmer knows, with these indications it means the
best of health, with an increase of milk in quantity, and the quality
so much better, that the butter, with its rich golden color, is only
equalled in flavor by the June grasses.
bince I began to feed ensilage, I give no hay : each cow has its
EXPERIENCE AT ECHO DALE FARM.
35
fifty to sixty pounds of ensilage per day, with six quarts of shorts ;
add to this, for milch cows, two quarts of corn-meal : this is for a
day's feeding, fed morning and night, at noon half a peck of beets
or carrots. Cows that are dry, and young cattle, no meal, turnips
iu place of beets or carrots. I had one Jersey cow that gave four
quarts of milk per day up to the time of calving. She brought forth
a fine healthy calf : the calf is now four weeks old, and has improved
as well as, if not better than, when the cow was fed upon hay. The
cow has been fed upon ensilage all the time, with six quarts of shorts
per day, gives a good flow of milk, and looks finely.
After taking off the corn- fodder for ensilage, I prepared the
ground, and sowed it to rye, with two acres additional. I shall cut
the rye while green, and in blossom, put it in silo to feed out during
late summer ; after the rye is cut, plant again to corn for ensilage,
to be put in silo early in September. I shall build, the coming sea-
son, a large silo divided in sections. Explanations given under head
of " Building Silos."
END VIEW OF SILO, SHOWING DOOR.
36 IL R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
CHAPTER VII.
FILLING THE SILO.
WILL require either steam or horse power, also a powerful fodder-
cutter. A good portable engine, with boiler attached, that will d
all the work, and do it well, will cost from a hundred and fifty to two
hundred dollars.
A good fodder-cutter will cost forty to a hundred and twenty-five
dollars.
A good one-horse power, all ready to hitch to your fodder-cutter,
will cost a hundred dollars. With this you can cut twenty-five tons
per day, easy.
A good two-horse power will cost a hundred and sixty dollars.
This power would require a more powerful cutter, and would cut
fifty tons or more in a day. If the farmer thinks it would be expen-
sive to buy this power and cutter for the few days he would want it
in the fall and early summer, to fill his silo, and if he has a small silo
to start with, he could unite with others in his town or county, say
two ; it would divide the expense : four would make the first cost
less, six would make it very small. Or one man could own a good
two-horse power with a powerful cutter, or a steam-engine, and go
from farm to farm, and charge a good fair price. In this way it
would come very reasonable to the farmer.
If you are ready to fill the silo, it is important to have your corn-
fodder and grasses fresh-cut when taken to the silo. Do not cut any
more in the field than you can take care of at the fodder-cutter, more
particularly if it is a bright, sunny day. If my silo held one hundred
tons or less, I should cut it three-eighths or four-tenths of an inch.
I should never cut over a half-inch for any-size silo. You are per-
fectly safe in cutting these lengths. There is no doubt, the finer the
cut, the closer the pack ; and from the beginning to the end pack
your fodder close, tramp, tramp, with plenty of pressure. Tramp
well, close to the sides and the corners. When your silo is full, even
with the top of your walls, and you have more corn-fodder or grasses,
you can build a frame of plank, two or three feet high, and of the
same width and length of the silo. Place this upon the walls, and
fill the space to the top of the wooden feeder. Upon the ensilage
a cover of plank is placed : load with heavy weights, and in two
FILLING THE SILO.
37
days the cover will have pressed the ensilage below the mouth of the
pit, on a level with the top of the wall. Then remove this covering,
and proceed to cover the ensilage as you would if you had not put in
this extra quantity ; spread as quickly as possible over the top of
your ensilage, rye, oat, or barley straw, to the depth of six or eight
inches ; then place on the top of straw the plank already cut to
lengths, crossways of your silo, close together, covering the whole
surface of the plank with stone or rocks, not less than one foot in
depth. If stones and rocks are scarce, place bricks, iron, boxes, or
bags of dirt, logs of wood, any thing that will weight down and com-
press the ensilage. By following these directions, you will always
have good success.
I have visited, or corresponded with, thirty-seven different parties,
within the past year, who have silos : all are enthusiastic on the good
reports of ensilage ; and the majority who have not large silos will
build one some two additional the coming year.
TAKING ENSILAGE FROM SILO BY VERTICAL SLICING,
38 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
CHAPTER VIII.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
- J". J~. HI. O-K.EC3-OE.ir,
MARBLEHEAD, MASS., JAN. 15, 1881.
H. R. STEVENS, ESQ.
My Dear Sir:
I have had no personal experience with silos, but think exceed-
ingly well of ensilage. In answer to questions, would say : Would
recommend " Blunt 's Prolific," expressly; but any of the largest
varieties of Southern corn will answer, such as " Chester County
Mammoth" for example. Why I would prefer " Blunt's " is be-
cause, while it gives great stalk here North (sometimes seventeen
feet high), it ears more abundantly than other Southern kinds. The
best time to cut corn is when the ears are in the milk, while they are,
bulk for bulk, by far the most valuable portion of the crop. I advo-
cate the Southern in preference to Northern varieties ; because, though
the Northern sorts analyze a large per cent of sugar, yet their bulk
of leaves and stalks is more than proportionally smaller. When to
plant, for the large Southern varieties, I would recommend, for this
latitude, to plant by 10th of June.
I would advocate plenty of room, have the rows three to four feet
apart ; also to plant and work wholly by machinery, when the area is
large. We have grown stalks to weigh five pounds or more.
As regards the quantity per acre, I would say forty tons, though
at rate of seventy tons per acre have been raised in small area.
Ensilage meets the means of doing what we before considered im-
possible : saves corn- fodder on a large scale, and large variety of
fodder, in better condition than when dried. It will make food more
acceptable to cattle, and present it in a form advanced one stage
toward digestion ; and, though the nutritious qualities may be slightly
diminished, the fat-making qualities are more than proportionally
CORRESPONDENCE OF GEORGE L. CLEMENCE. 39
increased. It will also nearly carry summer into winter in the qual-
ity it gives to the food, which cows will show in the butter and milk.
There is another argument of great weight : it will, in effect, add
largely to the area of our barns, by making the cellar and below
ground available for fodder storage.
Yours truly,
J. J. H. GREGORY.
CHAPTER IX.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
. O-EOE^O-E L-
SOUTHBBIDGE, MASS., JAN. 22, 1881.
MR. H. R. STEVENS.
Dear Sir :
In reply to your letter, asking my experience with ensilage, I would
say, that I first became interested in the preservation of our green
crops in silos during the winter of 1879 and 1880. In answering
your request, I will repeat the questions, and answer them practicably
as far as I have had experience.
QUES. What is your method of planting and raising corn-fodder
for ensilage ?
ANS. I turn under greensward about the 1st of May, and apply
six to eight cords stable-manure per acre, which I spread and thor-
oughly mix with the soil, to the depth of four inches, by using a two-
horse cultivator. I plant with an Albany corn-planter, in drills three
feet apart, about the 20th of May. I run a cultivator between each
row, as the corn is two inches high, then again as often as the weeds
start, or the soil becomes compact.
QUES. What kind of corn do you think best to plant for ensilage ?
ANS. Kentucky White, for the reason that it contains less sugar,
thereby producing less acid while undergoing fermentation in the
silo.
40 R. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
Q UES . What time of the year do you think most suitable to plant
corn for ensilage ?
ANS. About the 20th of May.
QUES. About what is the cost per acre of raising corn ready for
ensilage ?
ANS. I can raise corn-fodder for thirty dollars per acre. This
includes whole cost of labor, and one-half cost of manure, balance
remaining for successive grass-crops.
QUES. About how much corn-fodder for ensilage do you average
per acre?
ANS. I weighed a portion of my field last fall, and found I had
at rate of fifty tons per acre.
QUES. Do you plant or raise any grasses or grains for ensilage?
ANS. I sowed three acres of winter rye last fall, which I propose
to ensilage as soon as in bloom, and use it for soiling milch cows in
August and September.
QUES. What do you consider the best machine for cutting fodder
for ensilage ?
ANS. The "Silver" and " Deming, No. 16," sold by Whitte-
more Brothers of Boston.
QUES. What length do you consider suitable to cut the corn-
fodder ?
ANS. I think three-eighths of an inch most suitable.
QUES. Will you give me your experience with silos?
ANS. I built an experimental silo in July, 1880, in the following
manner : I took out the floor in the end of my stable, for a space of
twelve feet each way ; I then excavated in the basement beneath,
which is nine feet deep, one foot, and placed four sticks of timber
on the bottom of this excavation, so that the inside face of the tim-
ber was plumb with the inside face of the sills of stable above. I
next procured twelve hundred feet one-inch pine boards, twelve feet
long, planed on one side and matched : these I placed perpendicular,
and nailed to the sills of stable and timbers below. After putting
on one thickness of boards around the silo, we carefully papered the
inside with tar- paper, and over this laid another thickness of boards,
and painted the joints with thick paint : on the bottom, or floor, we
laid a coat of cement, three-quarters of an inch thick.
My silo was then done : it was in the form of a cube, the sides of
which were twelve feet, and the whole expense, including material
and labor, was thirty dollars. I will here state, that you may under-
CORRESPONDENCE OF GEORGE L. CLEMENCE. 41
stand better the position of the silo, that my barn is one hundred
feet long, by forty wide : the stable, in which I keep at the present
time sixteen cows and eight heifers, is in the south side of the barn.
There is a drive-way, or barn-floor, twelve feet wide, running parallel
with the stable. In the north side of the barn, there are bays for
storing hay. The silo is in the west end of the stable, the top being
two feet above the level of the barn-floor.
QUES. Your experience with cutting and packing corn-fodder for
ensilage in the silos?
ANS. I placed the cutter (which, by the way, was home-made,
costing only six dollars) on the barn-floor, so that the corn, as fast
as cut, fell directly into the silo. The cutter was run by a one-horse
sweep-power placed in basement of the barn. We began ensilaging
corn Sept. 13, put in two feet per day for three days, when the corn
that I designed for ensilage was all in the silo. Sept. 16, mowed
two acres of rowen, which we put in the silo as fast as mowed, with-
out running it through the cutter : this filled the silo within three feet
of the top. I then put on six inches of dry hay, and put on plank
cover, on which we piled cobble-stones to the depth of two feet.
The whole mass settled two feet after putting on the stones : there
never was any steam, or smell of any kind, escaping from it.
QUES. What do you consider it costs per ton to raise the corn-
fodder from the seed, and have it thoroughly packed for ensilage in
the silo?
ANS. I can raise corn-fodder for sixty cents per ton, and the
expense of ensilaging is about fifty cents per ton ; making a total
expense of one dollar and ten cents per ton.
QUES. What do you think would be the most practical size and
form of silo?
ANS. I think a silo sixteen feet long, twelve feet wide, and
fifteen feet deep, the most practical.
QUES. What do you consider the best and cheapest material for
building silos? Some are built of brick, some of stone and cement,
some of concrete, and some have been built up of plank with quite
good success.
ANS. In sections where good building-stone are plenty, I think a
smooth stone wall, plastered on the inside with cement, would be the
cheapest.
QUES. Have you opened your silo to feed ensilage to stock? if
so, did it come out satisfactory?
42 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
ANS. I opened the silo Dec. 4 ; found the hay that we placed on
top mouldy ; the rowen was a brownish color and very fragrant,
smelling quite like new-mown hay, but not just like it, more like the
smell of honeycomb.
The cattle all ate it greedily the first time it was given them, not
one of the twenty-four refusing it.
We got to the corn ensilage Dec. 24 ; found it had changed to a
light brown color, and had an agreeable smell, in which I could detect
a slight flavor or smell of alcohol.
QUES. Please give me your experience in feeding to stock, and
kind of stock.
ANS. Previous to the opening of the silo, I had fed my milch
cows two fodderings dry hay, one of the rowen, and one of dry corn-
fodder, per day, with one quart corn-meal and three quarts shorts per
cow. I then omitted the dry rowen and corn-fodder, and gave two
fodderings rowen ensilage ; and in three days the cows increased one-
eighth in their flow of milk.
For experiment, I kept an accurate weight of the milk from one
cow. For the week before opening the silo, she gave an average of
nineteen pounds and three-fourths per day ; for the week after open-
ing the silo, an average of twenty-one pounds and a half per day.
I then gave her rowen ensilage without any dry fodder, except the
meal and shorts, the same as she had during the season ; and she
gave an average of twenty-four pounds and a half per day, for the
week, showing a gain of four pounds and three-fourth per day, in
favor of ensilage. The cows ate during the week four hundred and
forty pounds, an average of sixty-three pounds per day.
Jan. 1 we put the cow that I previously experimented with on
corn ensilage, without any dry fodder except the meal and shorts.
She gave, for seven days, an average of twenty-five pounds per day :
she ate, during the week, an average of seventy pounds per day ensi-
lage. Corn ensilage weighs forty-eight pounds per cubic foot.
Rowen ensilage weighs thirty pounds per cubic foot.
QUES. What quantity, and how often, do you feed ensilage?
ANS. My supply of ensilage being small, I am unable to feed,
at the present time, as much as I should like ; but from careful ex-
periment I find my cows give the most milk, and appear the best
satisfied, when fed the following rations : at six o'clock in the morn-
ing, directly after milking, I give each cow thirty pounds corn
ensilage, with one quart cotton-seed meal ; at eight o'clock, four
CORRESPONDENCE OF GEORGE L. CLEMENCE. 43
I omuls dry hay to each cow ; at noon, fifteen pounds rowen ensilage ;
at half -past three, four pounds dry hay ; and at six, thirty pounds
corn ensilage, with one quart meal to each cow.
QUES. What is the effect of ensilage, compared with hay, upon
the milk and butter?
ANS. The milk looks and tastes like milk made in summer : the
butter is higher colored, and has an excellent flavor.
QUES. When you first began to feed your stock on ensilage, did
your cattle like it? Did they eat it as though they were hungry
for it?
ANS. The first time we fed it to the cattle, they all took readily
to it, except two ; and they did not refuse it more than five minutes.
The cattle now all refuse the best English hay or dry rowen when
there is any ensilage within their reach. The flow of milk has kept
up the same as when fed on rowen ensilage.
QUES. What quantity of ensilage do you consider will keep a
cow six months, or through the season for feeding?
ANS. I think a cow can be kept through the winter on seven
tons and a half corn ensilage, and four hundred pounds shorts ;
but think a cow would thrive the best, to feed her five tons and a half
of ensilage, fourteen hundred pounds hay, and five hundred pounds
corn-meal.
QUES. What is the general appearance of cattle fed upon ensi-
lage?
ANS. My cattle all look better, and appear more contented, than
when fed on dry fodder.
QUES. What do you consider the difference in the cost of labor,
by feeding and caring for the stock, by ensilage and the same by hay?
ANS. If the silo is convenient to the stable, there is no differ-
ence.
QUES. In regard to the success of ensilage, or preserving of our
green crops for fodder for our stock, in what way is it going to be
of great benefit, profit, or saving to our farmers ?
ANS. First, it will enable us to make milk and butter in winter as
well as summer.
Second, it will enable us to winter our stock at one-half the expense
of dry fodder.
Third, we can keep, on the same amount of cultivated land, a much
larger stock of cattle, which will increase our supply of manure, so
that our farms will increase in fertility and value.
44 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
In conclusion, I will say that I am so thoroughly convinced that
ensilage will be of great value to me, that in the spring I shall build
three silos, sixteen feet long, twelve feet wide, fifteen feet deep.
Two of them I shall fill with corn-fodder, the third with clover and
rowen. ^ I remain yours respectfully,
GEO. L. CLEMENCE.
CHAPTER X.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
IB. -A-TJSTIItT _A."VIE:R/5r_
SYRACUSE, N.Y., FEB. 5, 1881.
H. R. STEVENS, Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir:
Your letter of 29th ult. is received, and contents noted. I have
been very busy since the receipt of your letter, or I would have
answered your numerous inquiries earlier. I seize the opportunity
to-day to reply to your inquiries seriatim.
I consider the Mammoth Sweet Corn and horse-tooth corn the best
to plant for ensilage.
I plant with a drill, three feet apart.
I have considered the cost per acre of raising the corn ready to
cut for the silo, including the value or worth of the land, at seven
dollars per acre.
Without actual measurement of the land, which I considered was
eleven acres, it yielded twenty- two tons per acre.
This being my first experience with ensilage, I have not tried to
preserve any grasses, or other food than corn. This coming summer,
however, based on my present experience, I intend to construct an-
other and larger silo than my present 'one, and preserve a large quan-
tity of both orchard-grass and clover, as well as fill my present silo
again with corn.
I used one of Bradley & Co.'s reaping-machines for the purpose of
cutting the corn, and which did its work in an admirable manner.
They are manufactured at Syracuse, N.Y.
CORRESPONDENCE OF B. AUSTIN AVERT. 45
I am fully satisfied that ensilage needs to be cut fine. I would say,
under no circumstances cut more than half an inch long.
I commenced cutting my corn about the 1st of September last, and
immediately conveyed the same to the silo, where, on a platform, I
had erected two Daniels cutting-machines, run by a small stationary
engine, and so arranged that the corn dropped into the silo as it left
the cutters, where I had men stationed to spread it evenly, and to
insure thorough packing. I introduced a pair of small mules to
tramp the same, keeping them constantly stirring, and close to the
sides and ends of the silo. I had men and boys to tramp where the
mules could not reach.
My silo is seventy feet long, twelve feet wide, and twelve feet
deep, containing, as per measurement, ten thousand and eighty cubic
feet, or two hundred and forty tons at forty-two feet per ton ; and the
actual cost (exclusive of constructing the silo) of the ensilage in
the silo is sixty cents per ton ; and with the benefit of last year's
experience, I feel confident I can reduce the expense of again filling
the silo, at least one-third, making the actual cost for the coming
year not to exceed forty cents per ton.
My silo is constructed on a level with the cow-stalls, in the base-
ment of the barn. I think it would be full as well, if in dry soil,
that the silo be eighteen or twenty feet deep.
I am not fully prepared to say that wood would not answer the
purpose in constructing a .silo ; but I am fully satisfied that stone of
concrete is the more available, with smooth sides to allow the weight
on the top of the silo to press evenly, and exclude all the air pos-
sible. I regard the short cutting, thorough tramping, and heavy
pressure on the top, the great essentials in preserving the food in
good condition to feed to advantage.
I opened my silo about the 1st of November last, and commenced
to feed about one hundred head of cattle out of same at once. Not
one of any kind of stock on the farm refused it ; and all, with the
exception of the pair of mules, ate it very greedily. (I think the
mules must have been disgusted with the part they were obliged to
play in tramping it. ) Previous to opening the silo, I had been feed-
ing my cows on good hay ; and, after three days feeding of ensilage,
they had each increased, on an average, a quart of milk per day. I
commenced feeding about forty pounds per day, and increased to
about sixty, and just about what they would eat clean without waste.
My mode of feeding the ensilage has been, to take out the same
46 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
from the silo, and expose to the air from eight to ten hours before
feeding, a part of the time, and then feeding direct from the silo
while yet warm. I have found, by the experiment, that the cattle
enjoy it either way, and I think perhaps as well, if not better, when
given them directly from the silo, and with full as great advantage to
the stock.
My mode of feeding has been, in the morning, to give a feed of
corn cut and steamed, which was cut and left standing in the field at
same time the corn was cut for the silo. This the cattle will eat in
the morning very well. At noon I give each cow about sixty pounds
of ensilage, and in the evening I give a small quantity of hay from
the mow.
I feed ensilage without any thing else -mixed with it, and obtain
equally good results as when I fed hay and grain ; yet I believe
still better results might be obtained by feeding about three quarts of
oil or cotton-seed meal, or corn-meal and shorts : but whether enough
better results might be obtained in producing milk, to pay for the
expense, I doubt ; but for the laying-on of flesh, or fattening for the
stall, I am convinced it would pay well.
It certainly costs me one-half less labor to feed ensilage than
either hay or corn-stalks, as ordinarily cured.
The horses, calves, milch cows, turkeys, ducks, and chickens (all
except the mules, true to the very stubbornness of their nature, even
on ensilage) have eaten it from the very first, feed with avidity and
relish I have seldom witnessed. The turkeys and chickens, etc., have
not been fed an ounce of grain this winter, except such as they have
obtained from the silo, and a finer plumaged set of birds I never saw ;
and I have never succeeded in getting as fat turkeys as I now have,
even by the most skilful feeding.
The milch cows have eaten it with equally great if not even bettei
relish than the young cattle, and have kept up their full flow of milk
all the while.
I consider, from my present experience, that from five to five tons
and a half of ensilage, on an average, will keep a cow through six
months without grain, in good fair condition.
I have now fed my milch cows and young stock on ensilage since
the 1st of November last ; and I challenge, not only the county of
Onondaga, but the entire Empire State, to produce a practical work-
ing dairy of milch cows, with better forms and condition, brighter,
healthier eyes, softer skins, sleeker coats, and more extended udders,
CORRESPONDENCE OF B. AUSTIN AVERT. 41
than mine. Hence, I say, that ensilage properly preserved is a health-
ful food, and very digestible ; and every farmer knows that eows cannot
maintain a full and healthy flow of milk, good forms and general con-
dition, sleek coats, soft skins, and bright eyes, unless the food given
assimilates, which is necessary to produce the above qualities.
I do not keep any sheep on my farm, and therefore cannot state
the cost of keeping same.
I have never practised soiling cattle.
I know of no reason why cattle would not do well fed on ensilage
the year round, with a slight run at pasture occasionally for a
change ; although my experience, so far, is limited by my present
feeding of ensilage this winter.
I have farmed it now for over thirty years on my present farm ;
and, for over twenty years, I have never sold a ton of hay off the
farm, having always deemed it necessary to feed the same on the
farm to keep up the average flow of milk during the winter, and, in
addition, feed for six months of the year grain costing me never
less than a hundred dollars per month, and often as high as a hun-
dred and fifty dollars per month with this hay. This year I have
already drawn to market fifty tons of hay, which I have sold from
twelve to eighteen dollars per ton, according to quality and change in
market, and intend to sell fifty tons more before spring, or as soon as
I can market it ; and have, since the first day of November, fed the
ensilage without a pound of grain of any kind ; and my stock to-day
are certainly in as good, if not better, condition, as any winter in
twenty years, when I fed the grain and hay combined ; and the flow
of milk is fully up to the standard of any period under the old system
of feeding.
Now, in closing this letter, let me state what I consider justly due
to my friend, the Hon. Daniel Bookstaver, ex-mayor of Syracuse,
who first gave me encouragement to build a silo, and kindly gave me
the benefit of his extended reading, and a goodly portion of his time
in supervising the construction and filling of the silo ; and who was
the only man in the whole county of Onondaga who insisted upon it
that it would be a success ; and whose faith never wavered a particle,
when it seemed as if not only my neighbors, but all who came to see it,
would go away to publicly pity me that I was making such a fool of
myself. But Mr. Bookstaver always calmly replied to these wise
men, " Wait and see : they laugh longest who laugh last ; " "It has
succeeded in France, it will succeed here;" and bolstered me up
48 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
always with his invincible courage and belief ; and his every prophecy
in relation to the silo has been fully verified, and I am reaping the
benefit in a golden harvest.
I am fully convinced from my success, and the number who now
come to see the silo, and watch the cattle as they are fed, and their
surprise and conviction against their previous prejudice, that there
will be, instead of my single silo in this county another year, at least
fifty next year, and in less than five years more than one thousand.
If the information I have so hurriedly given you will prove of any
benefit to my countrymen, I am only too glad to have been enabled to
give it to you.
Yours, etc.,
B. AUSTIN AVERT.
It appears by the statement of Mr. Avery, the gain in feeding his
stock with ensilage, compared with former years, will be the sale of
a hundred tons of hay, which would average fifteen dollars per ton
(fifteen hundred dollars) ; also the saving of a hundred and twenty-
five dollars, the average per month of grain, six months (seven hun-
dred and fifty), making a total of $2,250 ; also the increased quantity
of milk, which was an average of one quart per day per cow, after
three days feeding, and also saves one-half the labor, in feeding with
ensilage ; and his cattle are in better condition than they have been
for twenty years.
THE VALUE OF GREEN FORAGE CROPS. 49
CHAPTER XL
THE ADVANTAGES AND VALUE OF GREEN FORAGE CROPS BY EN-
SILAGE, OVER THE SAME IN THEIR NATURAL OR GREEN STATE.
BY IFIROIFIESSOiR, IMl'lBiR/XTDIEJ.
ENSILAGE gives the farmer the means of readily preserving such
crops in the cheapest and easiest manner. No other method can
compare with it on the score of economy. Goffart, in an itemized
statement, shows that the cost of gathering and "ensilaging" about
two hundred and fifty tons of Indian corn does not exceed twenty
cents per ton. His laborers, men and women, cost him from twenty
cents to thirty-seven and a half cents each by the day. Another
French agriculturist, M. de Beauquesnc, puts the cost at twenty
cents for the long ton, 2,250 pounds. Both these gentlemen use
steam-power. Another, who uses horse-power, estimates the cost at
sixty cents for the long ton. Dr. Bailey states that the cost of cutting
down the corn, hauling it to the cutter, cutting it up, and packing it
in the silo, was not far from seventy-five cents. The same work at
the University farm costs sixty-eight and three-fourths cents per ton.
We put up about seventeen tons : the labor was charged at seventy-
five cents per day for each hand. It should also be observed that the
cutting is properly no part of the cost : it should be done whether
the corn is green or dry, as a measure of economy, to avoid waste in
feeding, and to save the animal as much muscular exertion in the act
of eating as possible. It can be done cheaper, once for all, than
from day to day, as required by the usual practice of feeding. Third,
the value of the food so preserved is beyond all question. It comes
out of the silo green and succulent, and as fresh as when first put
in, the slight changes which it undergoes being all for the better.
After repeated trials, under various conditions, and with different
kinds of stock, many French farmers declare that three hundred
pounds, not a few that two hundred pounds, of this ensilage, are fully
equal to one hundred pounds of the very best hay. Goffart (and
50 //. ft. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
after him Dr. Bailey) draws attention to the fact that a given weight
of grass, amply sufficient when green to fatten an animal, will hardly
suffice to keep him alive when it is cured up into even first-class hay ;
that grass fattens, while hay will not ; that grass gives rich milk and
golden butter, hay inferior milk and pale, insipid butter ; that the
odor of a new-mown meadow shows that the elements of nutrition are
escaping from the grass during the process of desiccation.
Such observations, however, are neither new nor original. More
than thirty years ago Bousingault observed of the value of green
food, " Breeders have long suspected that green fodder is more
nutritious than dry ; that grass, clover, etc., lose nutritious matter by
being made into hay."
That the thing is so, in fact, appears to have been demonstrated
by a skilful agriculturist, M. Perrault de Jotemps, who found that
nine pounds of green lucerne were quite equal in foddering sheep to
three and three-tenths pounds of the same forage made into hay ;
whilst he at the same time ascertained that nine pounds of greeii
lucerne would not, on an average, yield more than two and two-
hundredths pounds of hay. In allowing each sheep three and threev
tenths pounds of lucerne hay as its ration, consequently, it was as U
the animal had had fourteen and thirty- four hundredths, or more than
fourteen and one-fourth pounds of the green vegetable, for its allow^
ance. These practical facts are obviously of great importance : thej
prove, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that the belief of agriculturist*
in general, as to the immense advantages of consuming clover anc\
lucerne (and he might well add Indian corn), " as green meat, is well
founded." Green-corn forage is not a perfect or concentrated food,
si large amount being required to sustain life ; still, as experience
demonstrates, it is a very valuable one, and its cheapness allows of
its being fed in large quantities. Analysis, not always a safe guide,
supports the conclusions of practical men. In the following table the
first two analyses, of green corn and ensilage from the silo of Dr.
Bailey, are by Professor Goessman, of the Massachusetts Agricul-
tural College; the others, of French maize and ensilage, by M.
Grandeau, director of one of the leading experimental stations of
France :
THE VALUE OF GREEN FORAGE CROPS.
51
pj Q,
N ^
a
N
.^3 ^ Q C*
!i
I'S
o
P
s i^ ^
S_o
M
^'tt
ao ^
11 i
R' ! P 2
sj
|||
S> ?
i21
111
11
111
Is'i?
<
W
s
M
M
Water
85.04
80.70
86.20
81.28
60.71
Crude cellulose.
4.53
0.43
3.07
4.91
8.70
Fats ....
0.26
0.62
0.18
0.36
1.50
Ash
0.82
1.77
0.95
2.25
8.43
Non-nitrogenous matters
8.49
8.92
8.10
9.73
16.48
Nitrogenous matters
Acid
0.86
1.56
0.90
1.24
0.23
3.74
0.44
It will be seen that the American samples of green corn and ensi-
lage compare very favorably with the European. European feeding-
stuffs generally show higher percentages of nutritive elements than
the American. The sample of American ensilage is richer than the
French in albuminoids. In both the value of the process is clearly
shown in the increased richness of the food.
It is contended by some, that the process of ensilage cannot change
the character of the material used, or make corn richer. But such a
change really occurs. All persons acquainted with chemistry know<
that, of two substances identically alike in composition, one may b<?
nutritious and the other not. Crude cellulose, like the lint of cotton,
cotton or woollen rags, saw-dust, paper, etc., are rather unpalatable,
as well as indigestible, articles of food for man ; and yet their treat-
ment with sulphuric acid converts then into glucose, or molasses, an
article in daily use on our tables. Such transformations take place
in the corn subjected to ensilage, according to Grandeau : parts of the
starch and celullose are transformed into sugar, and the albuminoids
are increased at the expense of the carbo-hydrates. The subsequent
fermentation on exposure to air imparts to the corn an acidity or
alcoholic taste very acceptable to animals. Any thing sour is not
only more relished, but, such is the part played by the imagination
in digestion, also more nutritious. Again, the softness of the food
saves the muscular exertion in mastication.
The French committee already referred to in their report dated
April, 1875, observe that the cows of Goffart had been fed exclu-
sively on ensilage during the winter. " We were struck by the healthy
appearance of the twenty-eight or thirty cows : their eyes were
52 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
bright, their skin soft, and they were in good condition. But the
point that above all attracted our attention was the sucking calves,
which are the most delicate, and always the first to suffer from any
deficient or bad food given to their mothers. We did not see a single
one that had hair in bad condition, or that was scouring. The
fodder that produced this excellent result contained neither salt nor
oil-cake, and one would naturally inquire if it would be sufficient in
all cases. For very good milkers it would be necessary to add some
meal or oil-cake to the rations of maize which we saw distributed,
and which weighed about sixty-one pounds per day ; but for the cows
in the stable of M. Goffart, weighing alive eight hundred and eighty
pounds to eleven hundred pounds, this ration seemed to be sufficient
for them and their calves."
It is contended by no one that ensilage will fatten an animal : it
must be enriched by the addition of nitrogenous matters, or the
albuminoids, furnished by corn-meal, wheat-bran, ship-stuff, oil-cake,
etc. A successful Scotch farmer, Mr. Hunter, settled in Hanover
County, Virginia, fed twice daily to each of his twenty head of
fattening steers, two quarts of corn-meal, and a bushel basket of
ensilage (about twenty-seven pounds). The effects of this ration
were exceedingly marked and satisfactory : the animals making rapid
and large gains during the continuance of the experiment, which
lasted six weeks. It would seem, therefore, that from fifty-five to
sixty-five pounds of ensilage (corn) daily to the thousand pounds
of live weight will be abundantly sufficient to keep animals in good
store condition, and that forty-five to fifty pounds mixed with three
or four pounds of corn-meal will rapidly fatten them. Its effects
upon the flow of milk have been remarked on by all writers on the
subject. The general testimony of dairymen is, that no feeding-
stuff will compare with green Indian corn in increasing the yield of
milk : it is decidedly superior to roots.
Hence an abundant supply of such food in greatly improved con-
dition, during the winter months, is so great and so obvious as to
challenge the attention of every one. In this great department of
agriculture, dairying, it indeed promises a revolution.
Another advantage of no small importance to the farmer is, that
by this process he is rendered comparatively independent of the
weather. He knows, to his cost, the trouble and worry of hay-
making, how that his crop may be seriously damaged, perhaps
destroyed, by a single day's rain. In this process, he would almost
THE VALUE OF GREEN FORAGE CROPS. 53
welcome rain, in moderate quantity, as much as in hay-making he
would dread it. The secret of the process lies in the thorough ex-
clusion of air from the vegetable mass in the pit, or silo. The tissues
of which all plants are composed are made up of minute closed cells,
or elongated tubes of very small calibre : these are hollow within,
and the cavities must be filled either with air or water. When the
plant is fresh and green, it is surcharged with moisture which pene-
trates its tissues, and fills these cavities : when wilted, the water
escapes by evaporation, and air takes its place. This air is retained
with great tenacity, and its expulsion is a matter of much difficulty.
Hence the importance of packing away the corn, or other green
matter, in as fresh and succulent a condition as possible, and the
advisability of sprinkling it w r ith water if wilted, in order to keep it
moist, and so prevent the entrance of air.
Again, in a dry spring the hay crop may fail ; but corn can be sown
at any time, in this latitude, between the middle of May and 10th of
July, and, if need be, in continued succession. Very rarely is the
whole season unpropitious : if the spring is too dry, the late summer
is more favorable : hence, with such a crop as corn, the chances are
greatly multiplied.
54 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
CHAPTER XII.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
OA.IFT_ GK
ESSEX, VT. ; FEB. 2, 1881.
MR. H. R. STEVENS.
Dear Sir :
I am glad you are starting to do something towards giving farmers
reliable, practical information on the, to them, most important matter,
the preservation of green crops in silos for ensilage. I receive many
letters from the South, in fact, from all parts of Florida, Alabama,
Georgia, New York, Maine, and Vermont, all wanting the same
information you propose giving to them. I am an old sea-captain ;
was placed on the retired list a few years ago, after forty-five years
of seafaring life ; and all I know about farming had to be learned
from the agricultural papers. Two years ago I first read Mr. Mor-
ris's report, of Maryland, about silos : I concluded to dig one in the
ground. I dug a trench four feet wide, and about as deep, extending
it to hold what I had of sowed corn on a half-acre, packing it into
the trench without cutting, rounded up the top, put a length of boards
on lengthwise, put on a few stones, then ploughed and shovelled dirt
on to the pile, well rounded up to make it shed water ; opened in
winter, and found it preserved perfectly, except at the upper corners,
where it was badly frozen ; but the cows ate it all up clean. Last
year I saw Dr. Bailey's letter, also Mr. Potter's, on silos ; and, out
of the stone of an old wall about the barnyard, I built a silo sixty-
three feet long, twelve feet wide, nine feet high, with partition- wall
in the centre : wall laid up dry, and pointed with lime-mortar outside,
and banked up six feet all around, pointed and plastered with lime
inside, with cement floor. My reason for building it so long was that
I struck water after excavating four feet near the barn, and I feared
it would trouble me, so I lengthened it out into dryer ground ; but I
CORRESPONDENCE OF CAPT. G. MORTON. 55
am happy to say, the cement floor kept out the water, and I shall this
year build it to twelve feet high, and finish by a good lot of cement
on the inside walls. The cheap way of building a silo has demon-
strated that any farmer can build a stone wall with inside smooth,
bank up against it so as to keep the air from sides, put on plenty of
weight, at least half a ton to square yard, and he has a silo that wall
preserve fodder as well as a more expensive one for the first year or
two ; and he will then have a good foundation to build higher as he
wishes. Of course, the proper principle to build on is two alongside,
the central wall answering for both ; which I intend to do another
year.
My method for raising corn-fodder is to haul thirty tons of manure
to acre, and plough it under, four inches deep ; then thirty tons more,
and well harrowed in ; and plant as early as we do for corn, in this
climate, latter part of May to middle of June, with a planter, in drills
about two feet apart, and three kernels to the foot in the drill. I
should also say, and very important it is, to use phosphate. I used
Bradley 's in the drill, at the rate of three hundred and fifty pounds to
acre, to give it a start, and as much more sowed broadcast ; for I have
found out that I can raise as much from one acre well manured and
cultivated as from three half done. I use no other cultivation after
planting than the Thomas smoothing-harrow, and go over the ground
once a week, after planting and before coming up, without regard to
rows : harrow as if there was nothing planted until the corn is a foot
high. The whole cost by this method will not exceed five dollars per
acre, ready for cutting up. Average quantity per acre last year, thirty
tons. Half of it was not manured : the best part averaged seventy-
five tons to the acre, and taught me to make the ground rich. I used
with best results Blunt' s Prolific and Southern White, called the
" horse-tooth." It will take, as I planted, about five pecks to the acre,
put into silo what grew on two acres. The best machine, by all odds,
that I used, and I had three of them, is a Baldwin cutter. Mine is No.
14, costing sixty dollars, plenty large for a common farm. I cut into
one- fourth inch cuts ; and, when cooked in the silo, it comes out soft
and delicious. I have anticipated your question about my experience
with filling silos. The cost per ton did not exceed fifty cents from
the seed until thoroughly packed in silo. The best form to build is
undoubtedly deep and short ; but we must be governed by the circum-
stances and location. Stone, I think, is best and cheapest when they
can be had ; next, brick and cement. About here, where stone is
56 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
plenty, whole cost of mine was about a hundred dollars. I would
not recommend plank ; for I find, where the plank comes in contact
with the ensilage, it is decomposed three inches. I opened my silo
6th of last November, and found the preservation perfect. All the
stock took hold of it at once as if they were hungry ; and horse, cows,
yearling calves, and shotes have eaten since with increased relish.
I saw to-day the calves picking the bits of ensilage up, instead of
meal fed with it. Not having enough ensilage to winter all my stock,
I have, since the first month, fed corn-meal and bran : mixed seventy
pounds per day to the twenty-seven head, thirteen cows, eight year-
lings, six calves, five shotes, and one horse. When fed alone I gave
forty to sixty pounds to cows, and in proportion to young cattle, one
bushel to the swine, with one-tenth corn-meal and bran, and increased
quantity of grain until I now feed to the whole stock, including horse,
two hundred and fifty pounds ensilage, a hundred and fifty pounds
corn meal and bran, a hundred and thirty pounds of hay cut fine,
same as I cut the ensilage, the whole mixed up in a mess for the
twenty-four hours, at night ; and all the cattle are in extra good
order. This has been remarked by the many, at least a hundred,
that have been to visit the silo this winter, I being pioneer in the new
departure in these parts. Before I forget it I wish to say that cutting
my hay fine has reduced the quantity of both it and ensilage one-half.
I learned this from reading an article in " The Country Gentleman,"
where a farmer had cut hay for twenty-five years with same result ;
and the advanced thinkers amongst those who have been here con-
sider this cutting hay and straw, and mixing all together, a very im-
portant matter.
The long time that I have fed in this way satisfies me that it is an
excellent plan to feed ensilage. I am still milking seven of the cows,
and they give more than they did on the 6th of November, when I
commenced feeding ensilage ; milk and cream looks like it did in
June, as does the butter. I use the language of a leading farmer, a
few days since, when examining the butter : it goes to a grocer who
supplies the officers of the Boston Navy-yard. It netted us thirty-
three and one-third cents per pound, when other best winter butter
was selling for twenty-two to twenty-six.
I wish also to state that as soon as I commenced feeding ensilage
the cows doubled their milk. Please bear in mind that I had fed
green fodder night and morning, from middle of July, and after Sep-
tember two quarts of meal and bran, the pastures being dry. Of
CORRESPONDENCE OF CAPT. G. NORTON. 57
course nothing but the ensilage could have made this difference. My
wife, who has made butter on this, the old homestead, for forty years,
says she never saw cows give such a quantity of milk in winter. Last
winter I fed the same quantity of meal with hay, and the cows were
all dry before January ; and yet, with all these facts, I have neighbors
who will advocate feeding corn in the bundle, without husking, so
tenacious are some people of old customs. I told a man to-day,
44 Why, you might just as well have told me, when I was master at
sea, to heave shingles overboard, to find my way back with, instead
of using sextant and chronometer."
I take the ensilage out of silo any time of day, sometimes feed
immediately after taking out. I don't see any difference in its effects,
and cattle like it equally well either way.
One part of silo, when I had a heavy weight of stone, three-
fourths ton to square yard, it was very little acid ; and even what I
am now feeding has a pleasant smell and taste. I think ensilage is
worth as much, ton for ton, as hay fed with grain as I am now feed-
ing, better than either alone. I intend to put into our silo this spring,
or by the first of June, green rye, oats, and grass enough to fill it
for summer and fall feeding, and plant corn after. I shall then have
my first crop to put into the other silo in August, and also plant our
small corn after haying, to help fill in. I intend to build the other
silo, giving me three, and keep cows up nights, feeding twice in
summer. I am satisfied that other crops, with grass mixed with the
ensilage, will supply its deficiencies and stop the everlasting going
to mill ; from my experience this winter, I think forty pounds of
mixed ensilage (I mean put into silo green) per day, for average-
sized cows, will keep them fat the year round. I know I have some
small cows that do not need that quantity of ensilage alone, and they
are the best milkers in the stable. The cattle all like it better than the
best of June-cut hay : this I have proved many times, by seeing hay
left, but ensilage never. I will repeat that our cattle look better than
ever before, when fed on hay and grain ; and such experienced farmers
as Talcot and Whitney of Williston, and Taylor in charge of Col.
Cannon's stock farm of Burlington, said they had not seen any stock
looking better, and few as well, this winter. I give the credit entirely
to ensilage, for I had no more meal than usual. I learned long since
that we cannot expect something from nothing, and, by reading as well
as observation, that the farmers who are in the advance are those
who feed stock well. In conclusion, I would only say to farmers,
58 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
Go on, and build your silos, and you will be as enthusiastic as those
who have already tried it. I am keeping three times the number of
cattle that was ever before kept on this, the old homestead ; and I
could have had one hundred tons more, without interfering with my
other farming, by simply planting five acres more of common corn
after haying.
Respectfully your obedient servant,
CAPT. G. MORTON,
Essex, Vt.
CHAPTER XIII.
REPORT FROM
:MI:R/. CL.A_:R,:EC
POMPTON, KJ.
FOB NEW YORK TRIBUNE, Feb. 12, 1881.
REVOLUTION IN DAIRY FARMING.
ENSILAGE used for food instead of hay. Successful experiments
near Pompton, N.J.
No proposed change in time-honored methods of agriculture has
excited so deep an interest among progressive farmers as the recent
experiments in preserving green forage crops in silos, or cement-
lined pits. One of the earliest adventurers in this new field was Mr.
Clark W. Mills, of Arrareek Farm, near Pompton, N.J. ; and his
silos are now as extensive as any in the county, and this success last
year was so encouraging that he is now wintering one hundred and
twenty head of horned cattle and twelve horses, without a pound of
hay ; and he is confident that he will bring his entire stock through
until May weather furnishes grazing. His store of ensilage (or
"cow-kraut," as facetious farmers style the preserved fodder) was
gathered from less than thirteen acres of land ; and it is simply the
stalks of Indian corn, cut when green into half -inch lengths, and
REPORT OF CLARK W. MILLS. 59
packed in silos, under pressure so tightly as to exclude the air. Mr.
Mills estimates the entire cost of his supply of about six hundred
tons, including seed, tillage, gathering, cutting and packing ready for
feeding, at less than five hundred dollars ; and when it is remembered
that a sufficient amount of hay to answer the same purpose would
have cost something like seventy-five hundred dollars, the value of
the new process will be recognized.
Yesterday a number of gentlemen from various parts of New Jer-
sey visited Arrareek Farm to make a personal inspection of the
method of preparing the ensilage, and its results. In the party
were the Hon. James Bishop, chief of the State Bureau of Statis-
tics ; Professor George H. Cook, of the Agricultural College, and
State Geologist ; Theodore West, superintendent, and A. T. Neale,
chemist of the State Experimental Farm, besides several prominent
stock-raisers, like Messrs. Holly and Ahrens of Plainfield ; Nelson
of New Brunswick ; Ridgeway, Hutchinson, and Taylor of Burling-
ton County. In the barn, which is eighty feet long, there was not a
wisp of hay, but two pits, each forty feet long, thirteen feet wide,
and twenty feet deep, with strictly perpendicular walls of concrete.
One silo had been emptied ; and from the other a section of the cover
had been removed, and the ensilage cut out to the bottom, having a
perpendicular wall for inspection.
Mr. Mills has found, by experiment, that the freshly-cut maize can
be compressed in volume nearly one-half ; and therefore he places a
frame of plank fifteen feet high, and of the same width and length
of the silo, upon the concrete wall, and fills the space to the top of the
wocden feeder. Upon the mass a cover of plank is placed, loaded
with heavy weights ; and in a few days the cover will have pressed the
mass below the mouth of the pit, on a level with the floor when the
frame is removed. The cover is of two-inch plank, made in sections
of four feet in width ploughed and grooved, firmly battened, with the
battens of each section projecting, and fitting into those of the next
one, so that, under equally distributed weight, the whole moves down-
ward together. The sections are an inch shorter than the width of
the pit, leaving a space for air and gases to escape as the cover is
pressed downward. The weight used is about fifty tons of grain in
sacks, which is ground for feed as it is taken from each section.
The ensilage yesterday inspected was perfectly preserved, from the
top layer to the bottom. When cut from the solid mass it is of a
brownish-green color, and the juices have a slightly acid taste. It
60 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
has gone through no " heating " process ; but, before feeding, it is laid
in a heap for a few days, to ferment slightly, when it emits a pleasant
vinous aroma. The cattle devour it eagerly ; and their appearance
seems to prove that it is healthful, while the abundant milk they
produce is of the best quality.
Mr. Mills feeds less grain than farmers ordinarily use in hay- fed
dairies. A tall variety of Southern corn is planted closely in drills ;
and it is cut after the tassel appears, and the ears begin to set. Pro-
fessor Cook, who has analyzed ensilage from a dozen localities, pro-
nounces the Pompton product of the first quality ; and he thinks the
various devices here used have reduced the system to a state ap-
proaching perfection. All the experts present were convinced that
the new process would work something like a revolution in dairy-
farming and stock-raising ; which will be readily believed when it is
remembered that more than thirty million tons of hay are now needed
every year to supply the horses and cattle of the country through our
long Northern winters.
CHAPTER XIV.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
IDIR,. L. -W. OUIR/rXS-
GLOBE VILLAGE, MASS., JAN. 7, 1881.
MR. H. R. STEVENS.
Dear Sir:
Your request has been received : but if I were not much interested
in silos, and believe they are to renovate the New-England farms,
I should hesitate to answer so many questions, as it taxes a tired brain
to write, while it is just fun to go to the barn and see the cows eat
ensilage ; but, believing they are to add millions to the farmers of
New England, I accept your invitation, and proceed to answer your
questions in detail.
QUES. What is your method of planting and raising corn-fodder
for ensilage ?
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR. L. \V. CURTIS. 61
ANS. I have usually planted my fodder-corn between the rows of
early peas, cabbages, and potatoes, and, when those crops were taken
off, run a cultivator or horse-hoe between the rows once only. Never
put a hoe into a field of fodder-corn. Last summer we ploughed up
some where the grass had been taken off, put some manure in the
rows, and planted July 14 ; cultivated with horse-hoe once, and had
a good crop. Last fall, after I took off my fodder-corn, I sowed
winter rye, which I shall put in my silo, and then plant with fodder-
corn. I think farmers should aim for two crops a year.
QUES. What time of year do you think best to plant for ensilage?
ANS. Should sow fodder- corn from June 10 to July 4, or even
later.
QUES. About how much do you plant an acre?
ANS. I have usually planted one and a half bushels to the acre,
but think it will stand up better, and perhaps do as well, to plant only
one bushel of the Southern White, but more of any other kind. I
have planted thick, so the stalks would not be too large.
QUES. How much corn- fodder for ensilage do you think is an
average yield per acre ?
ANS. I think we can raise from thirty to fifty tons to the acre,
according to the condition of the ground.
QUES. Do you plant or raise any grains or grasses for ensilage?
ANS. I put in my field corn-fodder first, mostly mixed with corn-
fodder ; next came Hungarian, and finally rowen.
QUES. What do you think is the best machine for cutting corn-
fodder?
ANS. I do not think there is much difference between a Baldwin
or Lyons machine. I think either will do good work. My preference
would be for the ' ' Silver and Deming. ' ' I have come to the conclu-
sion it stands at the head.
QUES. What length do you consider most suitable to cut corn-
fodder?
ANS. Should cut it two-fifths of an inch long.
QUES. Will you give me your experience with silos?
ANS. My silo is built on the back side of my barn, the top being
on a level with the floor where my cows stand. To get fourteen feet,
I had to excavate about four feet. As I had no time to draw stones,
and had a sand and gravel bank within ten rods, I built my walls of
stone, gravel, sand, and cement, three parts cement, four parts
sand, and one gravel. In commencing I found I was using too line
62 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
sand, and finally discarded the use of sand, and used gravel, size of
a pea down to very coarse sand. I also found that some barrels of
cement were not good ; which makes a great difference in the setting
of cement, gravel, etc. I shall build two more silos the coming sum-
mer. There are many farmers who have no gravel near, and have a
good place in their barn cellars. If so, they can make a good one
out of plank and matched boards, or two thicknesses of matched
boards, with tarred paper between. One of this kind can be put in
very cheap. There are hundreds of farmers who could raise up their
hay-floors, and make silos in their barn-cellars, like my friend Clem-
ence, whose fodder has kept just as well as mine. It would cost
them very little.
QUES. Your experience with cutting and packing corn-fodder for
ensilage in the silos?
ANS. I think a silo should be filled as rapidly as possible ; cer-
tainly not less than one foot a day. It should be spread evenly,
the stalks and leaves well mixed. It should be well trodden. I
should keep one man there all the time ; and, if I was filling fast, I
would put in two. I say tread, tread : you cannot do too much of it.
QUES. What do you consider would be the most practical size
and form of silo ?
ANS. My silo is twenty- four feet long, fourteen deep, and twelve
wide. I would not build a larger one, unless I run a partition through
the middle. I supposed it would hold from forty-five to fifty tons,
but I now think it holds more than seventy-five tons. No man who
never saw one filled would believe they would hold one-fourth as much
as they do.
QUES. About how much did your silo cost?
ANS. The help employed cost me sixty dollars ; cement, forty-five
dollars. I had the gravel and stone, and supplied the brain- work
myself. This is for the walls. The excavating cost but little, as a
large share was done with a scraper. I do not think my whole cost
of every thing, except brain-work and sand, was over a hundred and
twenty-five dollars, and believe if I had nothing else to do, with my
present experience, could put one up like it for a hundred dollars. I
should want plenty of time, so that I could select my days, and give
it time to set, at the bottom particularly.
QUES. What do you think is the best and cheapest material for
building silos ?
ANS. If the materials are handy, build a concrete wall, of stone,
gravel, coarse sand, and cement.
CORRESPONDENCE OF DR. L. W. CURTIS. 63
QUES. Where and what do yon consider the best location ?
ANS. The location should always be convenient to the stable : a
side hill is far preferable. It should always be placed where the
ensilage could drop from the cutter into the silo.
QUES. Have you opened your silo to feed ensilage to stock? If
so, did it come out satisfactory?
ANS. The silo was opened Dec. 3. Although cold, the cows
increased in milk a quart a day, and some two quarts. I would add,
that the rowen that was the dryest had a very fragrant smell, while
that which was put in when very wet has a very agreeable smell ; but
the cattle eat it just as well, and it does not make the milk taste,
unless it lays in the stable while milking. I should not fear to put in
any kind of grass uncut, but should want heavy pressure, say a foot
and a half of stones.
QUES. When you first began to feed your stock with ensilage,
did your cattle like it ? Did they eat it as though they were hungry
for it?
ANS. My man said they acted like a hungry boy eating pie.
They will eat this in preference to hay.
QUES. Did your milch cows, when you first fed them with ensi-
lage, eat it as well as young cattle?
ANS. It makes no difference what kind of stock, cows or
young cattle.
QUES. What quantity of ensilage do you consider will keep a
cow six months, or through the season for feeding?
ANS. I should say, five or six tons of corn-fodder, but two less
of rowen or early-cut grass.
QUES. What is the general appearance of cattle fed upon ensilage ?
ANS. Cattle look healthy and sleek. My cows have roots, and
a full pint dish of cotton-seed meal. They seem more contented,
and look better than usual.
QUES. In regard to the success of ensilage, or the preserving
of our green crops for fodder for our stock, in what way is it going
to be of great benefit, profit, or saving, to our farmers ?
ANS. In the first place, he can soon double his stock, and, in the
second place, employ less help, making a double profit.
SUGGESTIONS. I would not let corn-fodder wilt. Should prefer
a dry day ; but should, after I began, work any day that was fitting
for man to work. If my field-corn fodder was a little dry, should
mix it with my fodder corn. Almost any land will grow winter rye :
64 U. K. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
ensilage this, and put the manure on the fodder corn. Any ground
will raise a good crop of fodder-corn. The manure made from this,
put on the next crop of rye. It will increase that crop, and leave
the ground in a condition to grow a good crop of fodder-corn without
any more manure. A farmer can put in his first or second crop of
hay without any drying, thus saving a great deal of trouble.
Yours respectfully,
DR. L. W. CURTIS.
CHAPTER XV.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
IFIROIFIESSOIR, CT. IMI.
KNOXYILLE, TENN., JAN. 18, 1881
DEAR SIR:
Although much over-crowded with pressure of work, nvy interest
in the subject of ensilage prompts a hast}' reply to your questions.
M} T experimental report will give 3*011 all the practical experience I
possess. I shall attempt no theoretical discussion, but only supple-
ment the report by recent results of experiments.
You will see that I put up last summer and fall nearly seventy-five
tons.
Silo No. 3 (the most unpromising of the three built, because in
digging it it we found the upper layers of soil loose and crumbling,
consisting of made earth, and were only prevented from aban-
doning the work by the fact that the silo adjoined the basement of
the barn in which our cattle are stabled) was opened Dec. 27. It
was only three parts full, and the walls, in consequence of the long-
continued rains, had fallen in from the top ; yet we found the pres-
ervation of the ensilage absolutely perfect. I could desire no
greater success.
Fed to all kinds of stock.
Was eaten b}* all greedily, and with every appearance of relish,
horses, mules, cattle, pigs, all enjoyed it. I believe, if you have a
ENSILAGE TREATED. 65
good, firm, dry, and compact clay subsoil, that a simple earthen pit
makes the very best silo. Science supports this conclusion, the result
of my experience, for the antiseptic and absorbent powers of soils are
now well known ; and the earth-walls permit the read}' escape of the
air forced out b}' the enormous pressure from above. The location
should be near the barn for convenience in feeding, on the upper side
of a hill-side barn, in order to be on a level with the basement in
which the cattle are stalled (such is the position of our No. 3).
I have only experimented with the large Southern field-corn : from
the liability of all varieties to mix, I confess 1 have in}' doubts as to
the superior merits of the much-lauded mammoth varieties. Seed
imported from Central America would be probably the best. I ex-
pect to have numerous experts this season, testing, not onl}* differ-
ent varieties of corn, but every other forage-plant grown. There
can be no question as to the superior feeding value of ensilaged
clover ; and I believe the several cuttings, afforded by certain forage-
plants during season, will equal amount of corn. Ensilage is, at
at least, fifty per cent cheaper than hay.
Finally I will give you a few practical hints. In taking ensilage
from pit, it is best to only uncover a very narrow section of end,
and to cut the slice, not more than a foot or so wide, down to bottom
from top. Remove this, and spread loosely and thinly on barn-
floor : it keeps perfectly for ten days and upwards, becoming slightly
more acid, and is more relished b}* stock, and the loss of w- eight by
evaporation is slight. The thin spreading prevents any rapid changes
and consequent loss.
Such management is more economical, as a large quantity can be
more cheaply moved at once ; and also by removing whole slices, it
prevents loss that will follow if only several layers are removed, and
some left without covering and weight ; for, in this case, the upper
remaining layers are spoiled by contact with the air for a few inches
down. We have had some thus loosely spread for three weeks, with-
out any deterioration or change, except the increased acidity men-
tioned above, being visible.
Finally, again, one writer contends, I see in a recent article, that
the acetic fermentation first takes place. A sample of ensilage taken
with great care from the interior of the pit, and excluded from the
air, and immediately placed under the field of the microscope, re-
vealed not only the characteristic fungi of the acetic fermentation,
but also those of the alcoholic. No doubt both processes occur sim-
ultaneously.
66 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
Bacteria, etc. (living organisms), were also visible in considerable
quantities. The fungi and the organisms were exactly similar to
those found in the yeast, etc., examined at same time.
I will communicate later on the results of my numerous, and I can
say accurate experiments, as they are ascertained. I will be glad to
furnish you any further assistance desired.
Respectfully,
J. M. M'BRYDE.
CHAPTER XVI.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
. IF 1 . IE. LOTJID.
WEYMOUTH, MASS., JAN. 5, 1881.
MR. H. R. STEVENS,
Dear Sir:
My attention was first attracted to the subject of ensilage by an
article in "The Country Gentleman," in November, 1879, which
referred to the subject in general terms, and alluded to the transla-
tion of the work of M. Goffart by J. B. Brown of New York. I
immediately set about getting the work, and read it with increased
interest. My experiments are made in all respects according to the
experience and suggestions of that writer ; who, by the way, I con-
sider to be the only reliable authority so far published. I take pleas-
ure in answering your inquiries, as far as my limited experience
allows, in as brief a manner as possible.
QUES. What is your method of planting and raising corn-fodder
for ensilage ?
ANS. On May 20, 1879, I planted a hundred and fifty square
rods of land well adapted to growing corn, which had been in grass
for several years ; ploughed it in the fall, and, as soon as the frost
was out of the ground and it was dry enough, spread the manure,
eight cords to the acre, and harrowed it in thoroughly ; after that,
until the time of planting, run over it with a cultivator, to keep the
CORRESPONDENCE OF F. E. LOUD. 67
weeds clown, and to mix thoroughly the manure with the soil. The
corn was planted in drills, four feet apart, the kernels from five to
six inches apart in the drills. This was done with an Albany corn-
planter ; and, as often as the weeds began to show themselves, run
over it with a Thomas smoothing-harrow, until the corn was a foot
high : this kept them down, and the ground light. The season being
dry, I cultivated, once a week, till the corn covered the ground,
then used the hoe to keep the weeds out.
QUES. What kind of corn do you think best to plant for ensilage?
ANS. The variety planted was " Blunt 's Prolific ;" which grew
twelve feet high, on an average, when tasselled out.
QUES. What time of the year do you think most suitable to plant
corn for ensilage ?
ANS. I would state, that it is practicable to grow two crops on
the same land, by sowing winter rye in the fall, after the corn is har-
vested ; which will be ready to cut by the 1st of June, in season to
plant corn for the fall.
QUES. About how much corn- fodder for ensilage do you average
per acre?
ANS. The product of the field was twenty-five tons. Several
different square rods of the crop being weighed, the average of the
field would make that amount. On 12th of August began to cut and
pack in silo.
QUES. What do you think is the best machine for cutting fodder
for ensilage ?
ANS. The machine I used was the "Baldwin Hay Cutter, No.
15," driven by a portable steam-engine. All was cut and deposited
in fifteen hours' working time. There was some delay, as the
machine was new and untried.
QUES. What length do you consider most suitable to cut corn-
fodder ?
ANS. The corn was cut three-eighths of an inch long, and, as
fast as cut, well trodden down by two men constantly walking over it.
QUES. Will you give me your experience with silo?
ANS. A word about silos. They should be built one-half or
more underground, for the reason that the temperature is lower and
more even.
QUES. Your experience with cutting and packing corn-fodder for
ensilage in the silos?
ANS. As regards the storing of the corn, one man with a grass-
68 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
hook will cut it down as fast as two teams will cart it to the silo ; one
man to feed the cutter, and one to tend the engine, and two to tread
it down. I think another year I can store the crop for seventy-five
cents per ton.
QUES. What do you consider it costs per ton to raise the corn-
fodder from the seed, and have it thoroughly packed for ensilage in
the silos?
ANS. The expense of cultivation, including one-half the cost of
manure taken up by the crop, was $2.08 per ton ; the cost of putting
into silo was one dollar per ton : making $3.08 per tori all packed in
silo.
QCES. What do you consider would be the most practical size and
form of silo?
ANS. The size will have to correspond with the number of cattle
to be fed, sa}' five hundred cubic feet to a full-grown animal for the
3'ear. The form, a parallelogram twice as long as it is wide. I
should prefer a silo with two compartments, each twenty- five feet
long, ten feet wide, and fifteen feet deep, to one twenty-five feet
long and twenty feet wide, for this reason : it will cost but a little
more to build a partition-wall ; and with this arrangement 3-011 can fill
one side with corn in the fall, and the other with lye, clover, or Hun-
garian, in the late spring. Such a silo, of the size named, will hold
enough to keep fifteen cows a year.
QUES. What do you consider the best and cheapest material for
building silos? Some are built of brick, some of stone and cement,
some of concrete, and some have been built up with plank with quite
good success.
ANS. The walls should be of diT stones faced with concrete.
QUES. Have you opened 3~our silo to feed ensilage to stock ? If
so, did it come out satisfactory?
ANS. Opened the silo Nov. 27, and found the experiment a per-
fect success. The top of the mass, about two inches thick, was a
little affected 1)3- fermentation ; which might have been prevented by
covering it deeper with rye-straw before weighting it down, say about
eight inches thick. After getting into it, the ensilage proved highly
satisfactory. In order that you may fully understand my way of esti-
mating the contents of my silo, and manner of feeding, I would say,
that, when fully pressed down, the twenty-five tons occupied nine
hundred and sixty cubic feet, or thirty-eight and a half cubic feet to
a ton, provided there was no loss of weight.
CORRESPONDENCE OF F. E. LOUD. 69
QUES. Please give me your experience in feeding to stock, and
kind of stock.
ANS. In one month I fed to three cows, one of them in milk,
one hundred and twenty-four cubic feet of ensilage, which should
weigh something over three tons. By other experiments, I find that
I am feeding about sixty-six and two-thirds pounds per cow daily.
What the exact loss of weight is, I have not }*et determined.
Q UES . What time of the day do you take the ensilage from the
silo?
ANS. We go to the silo every afternoon.
QUES. How long do you let it stay exposed to the air before
feeding it to stock?
ANS. Take out sufficient for twenty-four hours.
QUES. What quantity, and how often, do 3*ou feed?
ANS. Feed night and morning. With this, I have given two
quarts of wheat-bran per cow, and have now commenced feeding the
same quantity of cotton-seed meal, with a little of the shorts per cow
daily.
QCES. What do you think is the comparative cost of ensilage of
corn or maize with hay ?
ANS. In comparing the cost of feeding ensilage and ha}', I find
it to be as follows :
COST OF ENSILAGE PER DAY.
66?j pounds of ensilage cost 10J cents.
3i pouiids of cotton-seed meal costs 4f
15 cents per day.
COST OF HAY PER DAY.
25 pounds English hay at $22 per ton costs . . 27$ cents.
3 pounds cotton-seed meal 4 cents.
32 cents per day.
Cost of ensilage 15 cents per day.
Difference 17{ cents per day.
The price of good English hay has averaged with ns twenty-two
dollars per ton for several }*ears in the market, and is now worth from
twenty-five to twenty-eight dollars per tori. By the above, it will be
seen that it costs double to feed with hay, while the difference of the
product of an acre cultivated to ensilage crop or hay is still more
striking.
70 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
QUES. What is the effect of ensilage, compared with hay, upon
the milk and butter ?
ANS. The result has been an increase in the quantity of milk,
without any deterioration in the quality or flavor of the milk or butter
produced.
QUES. When you first began to feed your stock with ensilage,
did your cattle like it ? Did they eat it as though they were hungry
for it?
ANS. All kinds of stock eat it with relish and without waste.
QUES. - What quantity of ensilage do 3*011 consider will keep a
cow six months, or through the season for feeding?
ANS. This experiment proves that an acre of corn ensilage is
capable of keeping two cows a 3*ear ; while the average quant^y of
land required to keep a cow in the usual way is six acres of mowing
and pasturage, as by agricultural reports ; and, besides, it is not half
the labor to feed the stock in the barn.
QUES. What is the general appearance of cattle fed on ensilage?
ANS. The condition of my cows is much better than when fed on
hay, being in a thrifty state, and with the addition of cotton-seed or
oil-cake will take on fat readily.
Yours truty,
F. E. LOUD.
It appears by Mr. Loud's experiments in feeding, ensilage shows
a saving of fifty-four per cent, compared with the cost of ha}', with a
greater flow of milk, and other advantages, in favor of ensilage.
CORRESPONDENCE OF WHITMAN $ BURRELL. 71
CHAPTER XVII.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
IMIESSIR/S.. vsrHiiTiyn^.nsr & IBTJIR,-
DEAR SIR:
Your favor at hand. We send you by this mail, report containing
description of our silo. Hope this will be satisfactory. We will
gladly furnish any further information that we can.
Our silo is on the hill-side next to the barn. The bottom of the
silo is on a level with the cow-stable floor, and there are entrances
into silo from both the cow-stable and the floor above. The top of
the silo is on a level with the upper or main floor of the barn, so that
the fodder can be taken out on to either of the three floors of the
barn. You will appreciate the convenience of this arrangement.
The silo is built of stone ; the walls are three feet thick next to the
bank, and two feet thick next to the barn ; the roof of barn extends
over silo. All around the walls twelve inches of cobble-stone are
filled in from top to bottom, so as to prevent any water lodging
against the walls. Capacity of entire silo, about four hundred tons,
or two hundred tons for each compartment. On June 1st we put
in about seven acres of corn, with a drill, rows twenty-one inches
apart, and dropping six or eight kernels to a foot ; in September we
cut same, hauled to the silo as fast as we cut in the field ; and with
a feed- cutter of largest size, or next to largest size, we cut at the
rate of over one hundred loads per day, into pieces three-sixteenths
to one-fourth of an inch in length, which was evenly distributed in the
silos, and trodden down. The corn was large, stalks twelve to four-
teen feet high, single ones weighing five to five pounds and a half,
with ears on full of milk. Into one silo we put sixteen feet, and
into the other eleven feet ; as soon as filled (one taking three days,
and the other four) we put on the covers. These are of plank, three
feet wide, sixteen feet long, and two inches thick, fitting together
72 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
closely ; and upon these covers we put fifty tons of stone to each
silo (stone picked up on the farm). Within a week one had settled
to twelve feet and a half, and the other to eight feet and a half. On
the 2Gth of October we opened the silo having the eight feet and a
half of ensilage, and found the fodder as green and sweet as when
first put in ; we used no straw under the covers, and yet right next
to the boards the corn was all right. We have fed the stock since
Oct. 2G ; and they are all right, looking and feeling well. One
cubic foot of ensilage weighs forty-seven pounds : we are feeding
sixty-five pounds to each cow per day, with four pounds of middlings
and a half pound oil-meal (cotton-seed meal). We had, before we
began feeding the ensilage out to the stock, two hundred and twelve
tons ; and the exact cost of harvesting it, filling the silos, putting on
stone, etc., was two hundred and seventeen dollars, allowing full
wages for our own time, etc. We are now going to feed fifty to
fifty-five pounds to each cow per day, and increase the grain to about
six or seven pounds for the cows still giving milk, and half as much
to the dry ones. This two hundred and twelve tons from seven acres,
or a little over, is a large result, and is equal to seventy-odd tons of
hay, "costing but three dollars per ton, or ten tons to the acre. We
believe that by putting all the manure back on the seven acres of
land, that we can get up to forty, and possibly fifty, tons to the acre.
We see no reason now why the cows that are being fed on ensilage
will not continue to do well in condition and product ; and our plan
now is to raise about fifteen acres of corn next season (1881), and
this will be sufficient to fill the silo full, giving us four hundred tons,
and this will keep forty cows three hundred and sixty-five da} r s ; but
as we shall pasture all of the side-hill during the summer season
(about twenty acres), the pasture will also grow better, because the
cows drop more upon it than they take from it. We think we can
give the cows all they will eat, morning and night, of the ensilage,
and keep in this way fifty head, the year round, on fifteen acres of
corn, and twenty acres of hill-side pasturage. We, however, imme-
diately after taking off the corn early in September, ploughed up the
stubble, and put in winter rye. This came up finely, and we will top-
dress it this winter, and early in the spring give it a good bushiug-in.
We expect to cut the rye by June 1 or 5, and cut that up the
same as we do the corn, and store it in one of the silos, then imme-
diately plough the same seven acres, and put in corn ; whether this
will work, remains to be seen. But we have full confidence in the
CORRESPONDENCE OF WHITMAN BURRELL. 73
perpetual fertility of this corn-land, because it is to be replenished,
not only with what grew upon it, but from the grain fed with the
ensilage ; for, by the pidii we have adopted, the liquid manure is as
perfectly saved as the solid, and the most accurate experiments show
that the fertilizing matter of the liquid is greater than in the solid
manure. Professor Stewart reports that he has found the manure
from one cow standing upon the self-cleaning platform, carried fresh
to the lield, the liquid all absorbed by the soil, equal to the manure
from three cows saved in the old way, by throwing into a pile and car-
ried to the field months afterwards. In fact, there is no fertilizing
matter wasted or lost, except that carried off in the milk.
The beauty of this system is, that, instead of spreading the manure
from forty or fifty cows over two hundred acres, we use it all on the
fifteen acres that furnish the fodder ; and shortly the laud must
become very rich, and then we can use the manure on other land. Jf
we were to build a silo on level land, we would excavate ten or twelve
feet below the surface, and then let the walls of silo run up ten
feet, using the earth that was excavated to make a bank about the
walls above ground ; we would locate the silo close to the barn,
making the top of silo on a level with the barn-floor, over the cows ;
then, in feeding out of the silo, the fodder could be easily raised with
any of the same appliances used for raising and carrying hay ; and,
with a track running to the shutes, the car could be dumped so that
the fodder would be deposited in front of the stock. The walls of
the silo should be perfectly plumb and parallel, so that the followers,
although fitting closely, can settle without binding when loaded with
stone. As you build the silo walls, point up as you proceed, both
inside and outside, and then plaster the entire inside (bottom as well
as sides) with Portland cement, as it is necessary that the silo should
be water-tight like a cistern.
In regard to size of silo, we would make them twenty feet deep,
and put them as much below ground as possible, if good drainage
can be had, banking up around the outside with the earth that is
excavated, as before stated. A silo thirty feet by sixteen feet, and
twenty feet deep, will be large enough to contain two hundred tons of
pressed ensilage ; and this would keep thirty-five cows six months,
feeding about sixty pounds per day. For one hundred cows, we
would advise building a silo one hundred feet long, dividing it into
three compartments by means of two cross walls, and then feed out
one at a time. This would provide ail empty silo in the spring, which
74 tf. n. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
would be ready for the winter rye, clover, June grass, etc. (Hunga-
rian can't be grown early) ; which could be harvested early in June,
cut up same as corn-fodder, and stored in the silos for summer feed-
ing. Our ideas are, that it is best to give the stock a good feed from
the silos every morning and night during the summer, in addition to
pasturage. Now, as to whether people can afford to put in silos,
etc., we can only say that on our upland farm we had, at the begin-
ning of winter, two hundred tons of hay. If we had put in fifteen oi
twenty acres of corn, and cut and stored it in the silos, we would
now have been able to have spared all of the two hundred tons of
hay; and, as the price is now extreme (twenty dollars per ton), we
would have received for it enough to have paid all expenses of build-
ing both barn and silo, besides raising and harvesting the corn-fodder,
and we should have had fully as much manure to put back on the
farm as we will have now by feeding the hay. The stock would be
kept as well upon the ensilage as upon hay, and yield as much
manure ; and the hay that could be sold at eight to ten dollars per
ton would pay all expenses the first year. The right kind of corn for
seed costs eighty-five cents to one dollar per bushel ; and we hope to
get a feed-cutter capable of cutting ten to twelve tons per hour, or
a hundred tons per day, for about a hundred and fifty dollars, and
not require over a two-horse tread-power to run it. Corn-ensilage is
probably not a perfect food for cows in milk. Linseed meal, or
cotton-seed meal, with bran or oatmeal, will produce a good flow of
milk. Fifty-five or sixty pounds of ensilage-food, with three pounds
of linseed-meal and four pounds of bran, will answer satisfactorily.
We submit all this for what it is worth. Every one had better inves-
tigate thoroughly for himself.
Yours most truly,
WHITMAN & BURRELL.
It seems that Whitman & Burrell planted seven acres, on which
they raised two hundred and twelve tons, allowing the cost to be two
dollars per ton : they say, if they had planted fifteen acres of corn,
and put it into silo for ensilage, they would have been able to have
spared and sold the two hundred tons of hay. Allowing these fifteen
acres to produce four hundred and twenty- four tons green corn-
fodder, costing two dollars per ton, eight hundred and forty-eight
dollars, and allowing they sold the two hundred tons of hay at twenty
dollars per ton, which would be four thousand dollars, deducting the
CORRESPONDENCE OF J. P. GOODALE. 75
cost of four hundred and twenty-four tons of ensilage (which is more
than equal to the two hundred tons of hay) , it leaves a very hand-
some margin, or gain of $3,152 in favor of ensilage. Can any
Western farmer show such margins of profit for same amount of
money invested?
CHAPTER XVIII.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
IMIIR,. CT. IP.
WEST PEABODY, MASS., JAN. 10, 1881.
MR. H. R. STEVENS, Boston.
My Dear Sir :
In reply to your letter of Dec. 31, I will write a few lines, as far
as I have had experience, to answer your numerous inquiries.
QUES. What is your method of planting and raising corn-fodder
for ensilage ?
ANS. I have raised corn- fodder for several years by planting in
drills.
QUES. What kind of corn do you think best to plant for ensi-
lage?
ANS. The kind of corn I think best to plant is what some call
the large ensilage corn. It grows more fodder to the acre than any
other corn that I know of.
QUES. Will you please give me your method of labor in raising
corn- fodder for ensilage ?
ANS. My method last year was to plough the ground, and harrow
it, furrow it, making the rows four feet apart, plant from twelve to
sixteen quarts of ensilage corn per acre.
QUES. What time of the year do you think most suitable to plant
corn for ensilage ?
ANS. Plant the first part of June.
QUES. About what is the cost per acre of raising corn-fodder for
ensilage ?
7fi H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
ANS. The cost per acre would be: I should allow one-half the
cost of manure, I use fertilizer, Stockbridge, cost twenty dollars per
acre ; the labor would be ploughing, planting, and cultivating, which
would be about ten dollars. As to hoeing, it needs none. If planted
in June, the corn will grow so fast it will kill all weeds.
QUES. About how much corn- fodder for ensilage do you average
per acre ?
ANS. I raised, I think, about forty tons per acre.
QUES. How many acres do you plant for ensilage?
ANS. I planted four acres.
QUES. Do you plant or raise any grains or grasses for ensilage?
ANS. I cut several tons of second crop (rowen) for ensilage.
QUES. What do you think is the best machine for cutting fodder
for ensilage ?
ANS. I used Baldwin's improved fodder-cutter, said to be the
largest in New England, that would cut it short enough.
QUES. What length do you consider most suitable to cut corn-
fodder?
ANS. We cut a part three-sixteenths of an inch, and a part
three-eighths of an inch. It is slow work to cut it so short.
QUES. Will you give me your experience with silos?
ANS. I began to build my silo about the 20th of July. It was
built the same as a house-cellar, of stone, forty feet long, fifteen feet
wide, and fifteen feet deep. If we allow forty cubic feet to the ton,
it would hold two hundred and twenty-five tons of ensilage when
filled.
QUES. Your experience with cutting and packing corn-fodder for
ensilage in the silos ?
ANS. I finished my silo the last of August. Every thing worked
to a charm. I cut my corn-fodder with steam-power ; and in packing
I kept one man in the silo all the time tramping, and a part of the
time a man with horses tramping it down. When it was all in the
silo, and well tramped, I put on a covering of straw over the whole
of the ensilage, then planks on the straw, and stone and small rock
on top of the planks. This was done as soon as possible after I got
it filled.
QUES. What do you consider it costs per ton to raise the corn-
fodder from the seed, and have it thoroughly packed for ensilage in
the silos?
ANS. The cost of packing in the silos is from one dollar to one
CORRESPONDENCE OF J. P. GOODALE. 11
dollar twenty-five cents per ton. Allowing twenty dollars for Stock-
bridge fertilizer, ten dollars for labor, and one dollar per ton for put-
ting in the silos (and I have no doubt I raised forty tons to the acre),
and now allow ten dollars per acre for any extras there might be,
which added makes it cost eighty dollars per acre, or two dollars per
ton, packed in silo.
QUES. What do you consider would be the most practical size
and form of silos ?
ANS. For size and form, it would be best to suit the location.
QUES. What do }'ou consider the best and cheapest material for
building silos? Some are built of brick, some of stone and cement,
some of concrete, and some have been built up with plank with quite
good success.
ANS. About the building material, I should say what is handy
and the cheapest.
QUES. Have you opened your silos to feed ensilage to stock? If
so, did it come out satisfactory?
ANS. I opened my silo the first part of November ; and the ensi-
lage came out nice, as good as I could wish to have it.
QUES. Please give me your experience in feeding to stock, and
kind of stock.
ANS. We feed two bushels to a milch cow, with grain, cotton-
seed, and shorts, per da}', and no hay. The dry cows, no grain. The
oxen, the same as milch cows. We are feeding five fall calves on
ensilage with grain : they look first-rate. We are feeding eleven
cows, one bull, live calves, and one pair of oxen, with ensilage.
QUES. What time of clay do you take ensilage from the silo?
ANS. We take it from the silo morning and night. We take the
rocks off from the planks, and throw the ensilage up on the planks,
and take it from there into the barn as wanted.
QUES. How long do you let it stay exposed to the air before
feeding it to stock?
ANS. It is taken out sometimes two or three days ahead, and
sometimes right from the solid ensilage.
QUES. What quantity, and how often, do you feed?
ANS. We feed two bushels to a milch cow, with grain and shorts,
per day.
QUES. What do you think is the comparative cost of ensilage of
corn, or maize, with hay?
ANS. We are using nine hundred pounds of ensilage per day.
78 77. fl. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
If we fed English ha}', it would take more than three hundred pounds
per day : 1 think a saving of one-half.
QUES. What is the effect of ensilage, compared with hay, upon
the milk and butter?
ANS. I think ensilage is good for milk : as to butter, we make
none.
QUES. When you first began to feed your stock upon ensilage,
did your cattle like it? Did they eat it as though they were hungry
for it?
ANS. My cows did not all eat it the first day, but by the third
day they all ate it. I have a pair of new oxen just bought to-day
that will not eat it. Some horses that come here will dive into a
basketful up to their eyes.
QUES. What quantity of ensilage do you consider will keep a
cow six months, or through the season for feeding?
ANS. I think sixty pounds per day will keep a cow.
QUES. What is the general appearance of cattle fed upon ensi-
lage?
ANS. The general appearance of cattle is that they gain flesh,
and generally look better than when fed on hay.
QUES. In regard to the success of ensilage, or the preserving of
our green crops for fodder for our stock, in what way is it going to be
of great profit, benefit, or saving, to our farmers ?
ANS. In regard to profit, it will be in raising a large amount of
fodder on a small quantity of land.
Quite a number of questions you ask, I am not prepared to answer.
Yours respectfully,
JACOB P. GOODALE,
Peabody, Mass.
Box 206.
It seems Mr. Goodale is feeding about twenty head of cattle in all
his stock. He feeds nine hundred pounds of ensilage per day. He
feeds grain with his ensilage, and would give same if he were feeding
hay ; perhaps not as much with ensilage as with hay. If he fed with
hay, it would take, as he says, over three hundred pounds per day to
take place of ensilage. His ensilage cost him two dollars per ton
packed in silo, making cost of nine hundred pounds, ninety cents,
a day's feed for his stock. If he fed three hundred pounds of hay,
twenty-five dollars per ton is now a low price, the cost per day
CORRESPONDENCE OF BUCKLEY BROTHERS. 79
would be $3.75, making a gain per clay of $2.65 in favor of ensilage.
In six months' time, or during the feeding season, the gain would be,
in favor of ensilage, $518.70 ; and, if fed on ensilage the year round,
would show a very handsome gain, which would be $1,037.40, to say
nothing of other advantages, increase of milk, butter, and better
condition of stock.
CIIAPTEE XIX.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
ZBiROTHiiEiRyS.
PORT JERVIS, N.Y., JAX. 27, 1881.
MR. H. R. STEVENS.
Dear Sir:
I have not the time or the ability to answer all of your inquiries, as
we have them come from all quarters. We send 3*011 the enclosed
report :
" This morning the Buckley Brothers of this village opened one of
their silos on the farm of Charles Buckley, between Port Jervis and
Sparrowbush. The ensilage was found to be in fine condition ; and,
when fed to the cows, they ate it readily. There had been much
speculation as to whether the ensilage would be fit to eat when the
silos came to be opened, but there can no longer be any doubt on
this subject.
" Last summer Messrs. Buckley built two silos, to give the ensilage
system a test. The silos were put under the cow-stables ; and each
was nine by twenty-two feet, and fifteen and a half feet deep, built
side by side, with a two-foot wall between them. Into these were
put the green corn from about eight acres of land, making between
one hundred and twenty and a hundred and forty tons of fodder.
The corn-stalks were cut green at the tasselling, and were chopped
about half an inch in length. When the silos were filled, a layer of
straw was put upon them, and the planks were laid close together,
80 II. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
running crosswise ; and, to press the air out, tons of stone were placed
upon the planks. The fodder had settled two feet. When the
planks were removed, a vinous or alcoholic odor arose. The surface
was found to be spoiled to the depth of about two inches. When
this was removed, the fodder was found to be sweet and nice ; and a
veiy pleasant odor saluted one. The fodder was warm, not too much
so, and seemed to preserve the same temperature as far down as we
could penetrate.
" The only thing which disappointed us was in the color of the
fodder. We had vaguely supposed it would preserve its green color ;
but, where we got the idea, we do not know. The ensilage, however,
is not green, but of a light brown or dark straw color. This is all
proper, we believe.
" Mr. Buckley had given his cattle their usual supply of hay in the
morning. When the silo was opened, the cattle were fed the ensi-
lage. Nearl}* all of them ate it with evident relish at once, Mr.
Buckley said ; and all ate it in time. When we yisited the stables
the cows had eaten all the better part of the ensilage, in fact, all
except the spoiled coating before alluded to ; and they were licking
the floor where it had lain. We threw some of it to them, and they
ate it eagerly.
" The opening of this silo convinces us that the proper way to
preserve fodder for cows, horses, sheep, and all farm-stock, is in the
form of ensilage. The nutritious qualities of all green food are pre-
served unimpaired, and it is relished by the cattle. For these rea-
sons it makes a superior fodder. Added to this is the fact, that it
' goes farther ' than all other foods furnished, and enables the farmer
to keep at least one cow to every acre of land, and do it nicely and
advantageously.
" He will next summer build two more silos, and let ensilage be
the main fodder for his stock. We think it must in time become the
most economical way of keeping stock. Are well pleased with it.
Put eight cows on it for eight days, fed them their usual allowance
of feed and turnips the same as we fed with hay ; and at the end
of the eighth day, the cows had increased one and a half quarts a
day each."
Yours truly,
BUCKLEY BROTHERS.
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE WITH ENSILAGE. 81
CHAPTER XX.
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE WITH ENSILAGE.
ZPIROIFESSOIR,
THE history of my first experiment with ensilage is as follows :
M}* attention having been particularly drawn to the process by the
published accounts of the French experiments, and being convinced
of its great agricultural promise, I determined, soon after nry arrival
here last September, 1879, to test the matter experimentally for
myself. To follow the directions laid down by Goffart, was simply
out of the question : the expense would have been too great ; and the
experiment, even if successful, would have possessed but little prac-
tical value for the farmers of the South. Not one in a thousand
would be able to build silos costing hundreds of dollars, and to buy
cutters and engines footing up hundreds more. It has ever been my
declared aim to make my experiments as simple and practical as pos-
sible, such as would have immediate value for the agricultural
public, and such as could, with moderate care and outla}', be success-
fully undertaken by any intelligent farmer. My ensilage experiment
was, therefore, purposely of the very simplest description.
A pit was prepared on the northern side of a small grove, and on
the edge of a dry knoll, nine feet long, six feet wide, and six feet
deep. The soil wis a strong, firm clay, over a close, dry, and com-
pact red clay subsoil. The sides of the pit were neither bricked up
nor cemented. Owing to the long-continued drought, the corn at the
time of cutting was dry and wilted. It was cut down when the ears
were beginning to fill, with sickles, about the middle of September,
and immediately carted to the pit after being weighed. It was care-
fully laid lengthwise in the pit, and closely packed, layer by la} T er.
The mass was carried up vertically six feet above the surface of the
pit, in order to allow for its settling. About three feet of the clay
82 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
was then thrown on top, and it was allowed to stand for twenty-four
hours. At the expiration of that time it had settled down almost to
the surface. It was then heavily trampled, and more clay thrown on
the top and sides. In a day or so more the mass had settled down
well within the pit. The pit was closely watched for some time, and
all cracks covered up. It held thirteen thousand pounds of the green
corn. As its capacity was three hundred and twenty-four cubic feet,
the ensilage must have weighed about forty pounds to the cubic foot.
When opened on the 13th of December last, three months after it was
filled, the mass within was found to be sound and fresh, and but
slightl} 7 changed in appearance ; the edges and top alone, to the
depth of an inch or so, being somewhat damaged.
One end onlj r of the pit was opened. The soil was taken off from
this end, and the ensilage removed by cutting a slice out vertically
downwards. An axe had to be used for this purpose, so great was
the compression of the mass. After a few hours' exposure to air,
alcoholic fermentation set in. This food was greatly relished by the
stock. The end of the pit was left uncovered, except that a little
straw was thrown on top of the opened section. The ensilage was
fed out during the months of December, January, and February,
remaining sound and unaltered to the last. The plan pursued the
present season differed somewhat from the one just described. Two
additional silos were prepared. No. 2 (last year's silo being called
No. 1) was made and filled in the following way :
Like No. 1, it was simply a pit ten feet deep, ten feet wide, and
twenty feet long, dug in a dry and compact subsoil. The corn was
cut down (Aug. 4 and 5) with sickles, and immediately hauled to the
pits in carts, where it was dumped, after being weighed in an adjoin-
ing scales-room. It was then passed through a No. 11 Sinclair feed-
cutter driven by a one-horse railway (tread) power. This cutter
repeatedly sliced up a cartload weighing five hundred pounds, into
pieces one-half inch in length, in five minutes time. All the machine-
ry used was simple, and comparatively inexpensive, and such as
would be useful for many other farm purposes. The corn fell from
the cutter directly into the pit, where it was packed down by heavy
trampling. About thirty-five thousand pounds of corn were thus
packed away.
The upper part of the pit was filled with thirty-three thousand
pounds of green clover treated in the same. way; this crop packing
more closely than corn, and hence promising a more perfect protec-
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE WITH ENSILAGE. 83
tion from the .air. The mass was carried up vertically, three feet
above the surface of the pit. The pit was open three days, and the
ensilage had settled down very much during that time. The clover
was covered with a few inches of chaff, boards were placed trans-
versely across this, and above all the required weight (about one
hundred pounds to the square foot of surface). This weight was
furnished by a covering of red clay. Clay generally weighs about
eighty pounds to the cubic foot. In a few days the mass had settled
down to the surface. A rough shed gives protection from the
weather. The whole cost of "pitting" the corn, cutting it down,
hauling it to the cutter, slicing it up, packing it away in the pit, etc.,
as before stated, was only $11.25 for 17.45 tons (the yields of six-
teen experimental plats) , or about sixty-eight and three-fourths cents
per ton. The cost of " pitting " the clover, where the mower could
be used to cut it down and the horse-rake to gather it up, was some-
thing less. The weather was overcast during the whole process, and
hence very favorable. After the lapse of several weeks the mass is
only an inch or so below the surface of the pit, and it will settle no
more.
As the pit had a capacity of two thousand cubic feet, and held but
sixty-eight thousand pounds of corn and clover, and was about full,
and could hold but little more, the pitted food, or ensilage, must have
weighed from thirty-four to thirty-five pounds to the cubic foot.
The old pit, No. 1, was filled this year in the same manner as No. 2,
after being enlarged and made eight feet deep, six feet wide, and nine
feet long. Its capacity was three hundred and ninety-six cubic feet.
It was filled entirely with green clover, cut up and packed down like
the corn. It held fifteen thousand four hundred pounds. The set-
tling after the same lapse of time is no greater than in the case of
No. 2. Hence, the weight of a cubic foot of "pitted" clover is
about thirty-five pounds, the same as that of corn. A cubic foot of
the corn put up last year weighed about thirty pounds. Hence, it is
safe to put the weight of ensilage at from thirty-five to forty pounds
to the cubic foot. It is generally estimated as high as fifty pounds.
Silo, or pit, No. 3 was eleven feet and a half deep, twenty feet
long, and ten feet wide, with a capacit} r of twenty-three hundred
cubic feet. It was our original intention to cement it within, the
cement to be applied directly to the clay walls. This method is
generall}' followed in the vicinity of this city in making cisterns,
and nearly always with success. But the pressure of other work,
84 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
and more especially the unfavorable nature of the soil, interfered
with this plan ; and the silo is merely a pit like the others, but with
one end formed by the briek wall of a hill-side barn. The cattle are
stabled in the basement of this barn, and a door will be cut through
the partition wall so as to allow of convenient access to the pit. It
was filled in the same manner as the two preceding. The corn was
cut down Sept. 14 and 15. The weather was clear and diy during
the operation, and hence rather unfavorable. 43,538 pounds of
corn were first put down. For the sake of experiment, a thousand
pounds of common hay, five hundred pounds of clover hay, and five
hundred pounds of straw, were packed down in alternate kr^ers with
the corn in different portions of the silo. The upper part was filled
with 5,165 pounds of German millet, treated in the same way as the
corn. The millet was cut on the 16th of September. It was just
out of bloom. The filling took four days, and the mass settled down
greatly during that time. The pit was not quite full. A layer of
about six inches of straw was put on top of the ensilage ; boards
laid above this, in the manner already described, and twenty-one
thousand six hundred pounds of old brick placed above all, to give
the desired weight. This weight gave a pressure of one hundred
and eight pounds to the cubic foot. The pit is covered by a simple
shed.
From a careful comparison of the published results of numerous
experiments, I have every reason to believe that corn will keep as
well in pits dug in the naked clay, as in bricked-up and cemented
silos, provided the clay is dry and compact. The chief drawback to
the use of such pits is their liability to cave in when emptied of the
ensilage in the spring. If this can be prevented by temporaiy sup-
ports, props, etc., then my experience and observation, thus far, is
in favor of this kind of silo, the cheapest and the simplest yet
described. A correspondent of " The Country Gentleman " contends
that ensilage will keep better in such pits. He states that he has
experimented for a number of years past with brewer's grain, en-
deavoring to discover the best mode of keeping it. He has tried
stone, brick, and cemented vaults, barrels and wooden vats, and
found none to compare with pits dug in a good clay or other dry
soil. He is inclined to attribute the superiority of these to the pre-
servative action of the soil itself.
There may be something in this. Soils are known to possess
remarkable absorptive and antiseptic properties. It is more than
PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE WITH ENSILAGE. 85
probable, however, that the earthen walls allow of the more easy and
rapid escape of the air enclosed in the mass of vegetable matter,
the superincumbent pressure being sufficient to force it out into the
interstices, which are found even in the most finely comminuted
cla}"S. In cemented silos this air can only escape at the top, through
the covering of straw and boards. A few words as to the rationale
of the process. The great object to be attained is the thorough ex-
clusion of air, which contains oxygen, the great agent of deca} T .
Goffart, until quite recently, held that the ensilage underwent some
kind of fermentation which preserved it from further decay. With-
in the last few years, however, he has "become convinced." he
does not give us the grounds of his conviction, that the ensilage
is preserved absolutely unchanged, and that it does not ferment
until after its removal from the silo, and its subsequent exposure to
air. Others, notably Dr. Baile}', contend, as before remarked, that
the oxygen of the small amount of air left in the mass unites with
the carbon of the vegetable matter, and forms carbonic acid, which
bathes the mass, and expels, by its superiority of weight, the scant}''
residuum of air, and prevents its re-entrance.
All this seems to be mere hypothesis : what we want are facts.
But, even in a theoretical point of view, such changes do not neces-
sarily occur. No one, not even Goffart, would contend that there is
a perfect exclusion of air, and that all has been expelled from the
vegetable matter. Now, it is highly probable that the oxygen of this
included air, instead of combining with the carbon of the ternary
principles of the plant, unites with its albuminoids. It is well known
that nitrogenous matters, such as flesh, white of eggs, blood, fibrin,
gluten, etc., are the first to decay or putrefy. This putrefaction is
induced by their union with the oxygen of the air. In the presence
of the sugar, starch, and other amylaceous principles of the corn, its
decaying albuminous matters act as ferments, and convert the sugar,
etc., into alcoholic and carbonic acid ; in other words, induce alco-
holic fermentation. But, as the corn, etc., has but a small content
of albuminoids, the fermentation is soon arrested, for want of mate-
rial (ferment). Hence the fermentation is slight, and the mass
remains comparatively unchanged. In my experiment of last year,
the pitted corn, or ensilage, at the opening of the pit, was not alto-
gether unchanged. There was every evidence of some alcoholic fer-
mentation : the mass was slightly discolored, presenting the boiled
appearance of the grass preserved by the East Prussian method before
described, and possessed an alcoholic taste and odor.
86 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
CHAPTER XXL
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
CT^:M::ES s.
WASSAIC, N. Y., FEB. 7, 1881
MR. H. R. STEVENS, Boston, Mass.
Dear Sir :
Yours of the 31st ult. at hand. In reply, I will endeavor to
partially answer your questions, thus stating what little I know about
ensilage, and thus fulfil the requests made by you.
I consider the variety of Southern corn known as "White Nor-
folk" to be best suited for ensilage. "Blunt's Prolific" may be
better, but I have had no experience with it. The corn should be
a large-stalk-producing variety ; as large stalks, beside giving a larger
yield per acre, are much better suited for ensilage than smaller ones.
Plant in drills, with sufficient width between the rows to permit of
horse cultivation, and use not to exceed one bushel of seed per acre.
Upon a piece of five acres that I raised last season, I compute the
whole cost per acre of planting and cultivation, exclusive of fer-
tilizers, to be about seven dollars and thirty cents ; and, as the
average product was thirty tons, it makes the cost of labor per ton
less than twenty-five cents.
I have not as yet raised any grains or grasses for ensilage, other
than corn.
I have used for cutting ensilage the Telegraph fodder-cutter,
manufactured by Willson Brothers & Co., of Harrisburg, Penn. I
like this machine very much : it does its work thoroughly and easily,
although its capacity (about five tons per hour) may be too limited
for some.
The ensilage should be cut a half -inch in length, or less. I cut,
last season, about five-eighths of an inch in length, at the rate of
twenty-five to thirty tons per day ; packed and tramped it down
CORRESPONDENCE OF JAMES 8. CHAFFEE. 87
thoroughly, in a silo fifty feet long, twelve feet wide, and sixteen
feet in depth. When the ensilage was all in, six inches of uncut
wheat straw was placed on the top, the whole being covered with an
inch and a quarter spruce plank, of sufficient length to reach across
the silo, and fit closely between the walls. These planks were weight-
ed with stone, at the rate of a hundred pounds to the square foot.
The ensilage was about fourteen feet deep : it settled some three feet.
When the plank and stone were taken off at one end, two months
after they were placed thereon, there was found to be a little at the
top unfit for use ; but the remainder of the mass, nearly eleven feet
in depth, had fermented somewhat, was brown in color, of a slightly
alcoholic odor. On being placed before the cattle, some ate it at
once, with an evident relish ; and, in a day or two, every animal of
a herd of fifty would eat ensilage in preference to any other forage.
I think the cost should not exceed two dollars per ton, all expenses
told, to grow ensilage, pack it in the silo, and place it before the
animal for consumption. I should advise a parallelogram, the
length three or four times the width, depth sixteen to twenty feet,
corners rounded, or filled in. to make the angles as obtuse as possible,
as being the most practical form of silo.
It should be constructed of masonry ; and, if cobble-stones and
gravel are easily obtained, concrete walls will be the cheapest, and as
durable as any other. For one month I fed thirty milch cows twice
daily upon ensilage, giving them from sixty to seventy pounds each
per day, with about ten per cent of that weight additional in oil-meal,
wheat, shorts, and hominy-chop. There is nothing I have ever used,
unless it may be roots, and plenty of them, that will make a flow of
milk equal to ensilage of fodder-corn, for winter feeding.
I am now feeding ensilage but once per day, as I have not suffi-
cient to last until spring without supplementing with hay.
The ensilage is fed in the morning ; being taken from the silo the
previous day, and exposed to the air for fifteen to eighteen hours,
with no bad results, and apparently no change as to its chemical
properties. It is fed to milch cows, and the same rations grains are
used as when feeding hay or other forage. I do not think it will cost
more than one-half as much to winter a cow with ensilage as it will
with dry fodder, while the milk products will be certainly five per
cent greater.
A neighbor of mine has made the experiment of feeding a portion
of his dairy upon ensilaged corn, while another portion were fed
88 IT. -R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
upon hay ; and the milk of the cows fed upon ensilage being tested
by experienced parties, was found to be much superior in quality to
the milk made from hay, the ration of grain being the same in both
cases. I have cut and steamed my dried forage for my stock for a
number of years ; but I find the silo effects a great saving of labor,
compared with the steam-box, while the product of the latter is in
every way inferior to the well-preserved contents of the former. I
think a ton of ensilage, with ten per cent of its weight additional of
oil-meal, wheat, shorts, etc., is sufficient feed, and will keep an
average milking-cow in good condition and flow of milk for one
month ; and, being fed at that rate, the cow wintered upon ensilage
will thrive better, look sleeker, drink less water, and spring-time will
find her in better condition, than when fed upon hay, while the flow
of milk will be considerably greater.
I keep no sheep, but have had some experience with them in past
years, and should consider ensilage a valuable food for them.
Ensilage, or the preserving of green crops for winter feeding, will
be of great benefit to stock ; as it will give them a juicy, succulent
food, easily masticated and digested, in place of the dry, hard, and
woody forage furnished by the mow or stack.
Ensilage will be a great profit, and effect a great saving, to the
farmer, as it will certainly permit of his keeping double the animals
in winter kept by the old method, and at the same expense.
I do not as yet know how successfully ensilage may be used as a
summer food : time and experiment will tell that.
I have practised soiling somewhat ; and possibly ensilage will so
supplement soiling that we may keep our cattle at the barn the year
round. Ensilage is a subject to-day of more importance to the
farmers of the older States than all others combined, and I cannot
commend it too highly to my brother farmers : at the same time, I do
not wish to give such rose-colored accounts of the results of feeding
ensilage as will tend to raise doubts, and make the statement seem
improbable. I should be pleased to see your work when published ;
and, if any thing I have written is of any service to you, you are
welcome to use it ; or, if I can aid you any further in the matter,
advise me, and I shall be happy to respond.
Respectfully yours,
JAMES S. CHAFFEE.
CORRESPONDENCE OF 0. li. POTTER. 89
CHAPTER XXII.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
:M::R,- o. IB. IFOTTEIR,.
NEW YORK, N.Y., JAN. 31, 1881.
H. R. STEVENS, ESQ.
Dear Sir:
Though I think my address before the State Agricultural
which I mail }'ou, gives pretty fully my experience, I will try to
answer your inquiries further, as well as my experience enables me.
I have practised this S} T stem for three years ; have applied it to
common fodder-corn, red clover, pearl-millet, West-India millet, or
Guinea-corn, green rye, green oats, and mixed grasses in which
clover predominated, with entire success in every case. The last
year I preserved about one hundred tons ; and during this summer I
have put down about two hundred tons, and have added sorghum
and sugar-cane to the varieties of fodder I have before preserved. I
have never lost an} r fodder whatever thus preserved ; but, during the
whole experiment, it has been perfectly preserved, and better than
when fed fresh and green from the field. As the first fermentation is
passed in the process, the food thus preserved has no tendency either
to scour or bloat the animals fed. It is eaten up eagerly and clean,
leaf and stalk, without an} r loss whatever ; and stock thus fed exhibit
the highest condition of health and thrift. For milch cows, to which
I have mainl}' fed it, it surpasses any other food I have ever tried.
It increases the quanthty of milk much beyond dried food, and the
quality is better than that produced from the same fodder when fed
fresh and green from the field.
As you will see by my report, I cure all my corn, clover, green
iye, green oats, by this process. I always cut m} r clover twice, and
sometimes three times, in a season. I put down last year- the past
summer four acres green rye, two acres green oats, about twenty
acres clover, and five to six acres of corn.
90 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
I use the Daniels large-sized cutter, and thus far have used a one-
horse-power to drive it. I intend trying to get the maker of that
cutter to make one larger, to be driven by a two-horse-power ; but
his present largest size cutter, with single horse-power, will cut the
fodder as fast as two men can feed the machine.
The finer the fodder is cut, the closer and better it will pack. I
cut mine about one inch.
Make the silos narrow, not more than ten feet wide, air-tight,
weather-sealed, and the deeper the better. The bottom of the pit
will hold and turn out much more than the top, because the fodder
becomes more compact, like hay in a deep ha3*mow.
It costs less than half, in time and labor, to raise and make ready
for feeding a fodder crop by this process, than to cure the same by
dr}*ing ; and I think the same crop, cured by this process, worth
more than twice it would be if dried.
Silos should be made from seven to ten feet wide, and as deep as
possible, with close walls, and doors dividing them, as shown in my
report. The reason of this arises from the fact, that, when 3*011 fill a
silo, it is best to fill it up as soon as possible, not more than one to
two days, and then cover it from the air, and leave it to ferment
and settle as fast as it will, while you fill the next. If your silo is so
large that 3*011 can put but a foot or two in depth in it 1)3* one day's
work, it will not ferment as well as if filled and covered and left to
ferment. Sections should not be more than twenty feet long, ten
feet wide, and fifteen feet deep. It will take about seventy-five tons
of green corn, before cut, to fill one section, and from one to two
da3*s to fill it the first filling.
It is also important the sections be small, in order that when
opened for second, third, or fourth fillings, as each must be, the
fermented and heated mass then in the pit be exposed to the air as
littte as possible, and, when only a small pit is opened, the new fod-
der can be at once poured in, and the air will yet be excluded from
the heated mass below.
The green fodder is drawn from the field as fast as cut, and may
be cut in any weather, except during rain. After running through
the cutting-machine, it is deposited and trod into the pit firmly, until
the pit is full. The doorway at the end of this pit, having already
been closed by placing boards across it upon the inside as the filling
progressed, is now sealed tightly by placing other boards properly
fastened across it upon the outside of the jambs, and filling the space
CORRESPONDENCE OF O. B. POTTER. 91
between the jambs with well-compacted earth, so that no air can pass
into the pit through this doorway.
In feeding out the pits, when made in short sections, all chance of
deterioration from exposure te the air is avoided by opening one
small pit at a time. %
All ensilage I have put down, came out more than satisfactory.
This is the fourth year I have practised ensilage, and I never lost
ten pounds in putting down several hundred tons.
I have fed moving milch cows with ensilage, because I cannot
spare this food to dry stock.
I take out the ensilage usually when I feed it.
I cut down a slice one to two feet wide as wanted, and feed as cut,
and have not found reason to expose it more than it is exposed in
distributing in the mangers. I always give my milch cows about
three quarts meal per day, corn or barley, or sometimes two quarts
other, and one quart cotton-seed meal. Sometimes I put the meal
on the ensilage, but usually on the cut hay, moistened, which I feed
at night. This is best ; as no meal is needed to make the cow eat the
green fodder clean, while it is often needed to make her eat the hay
clean. I can't compare cost of corn-fodder with hay, better than any
one else. I have sowed fodder-crops, corn, clover, grass more than
half clover, yard-millet, West India millet, sorghum, and sugar-cane.
I am certain it costs less than half to raise and prepare for feeding
by this process, than by drying and cutting afterwards, and are
worth twice as much.
Two fodder-crops per year are easily grown the same year on the
same ground, unless it be sorghum and cane ; and there are no ex-
ceptions here and farther South, the first being sown early, and no
time lost in putting in the second crop after first is off. My cows
always ate ensilage from the start willingly without urging. I have
not fed my cattle much with ensilage. I can't spare it for them
till I get more pits. I have computed how much ensilage will feed
a cow six months : it will depend on the cow, the kind of ensilage,
and how well you feed her. The same food cured this way will make
more milk and flesh than if dried.
Cattle fed on ensilage as I feed them are sleek and fat and healthy,
and always fit for the butcher when milked dry. They look better
and do better than when fed on dry food only. I do not keep sheep,
but fed six on corn ensilage for several weeks, and they did finely ;
never saw any do better, and all brought fine lambs, and both dams
92 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
and lambs were healthy. Don't know what it costs to keep sheep ;
less than on same crops fed dry, because they ate all stalk and leaf
clean. I think sheep thrive fully as well on ensilage as on hay : can't
say further.
I practised " soiling " until I learned ensilage, but not since, as I
consider this method of feeding much the best.
In addition to the fact that fodder thus preserved has no tendency
to scour or bloat cattle, another important advantage is gained by this
process. These fodder-crops may be allowed to attain a much larger
and more substantial growth before cutting than is practicable when
the same crops are fed fresh from the field.
During my absence from home in the summer of 1879, my foreman
had inadvertently allowed a field of about four acres of pearl-millet to
attain so large and hard a growth that my cows wholly rejected the
stalks, and would eat only the leaves when the millet was offered
them green.
By way of experiment, and without much confidence in the result,
I cut about one-fourth of this field, and filled one of my pits with it.
The remainder of the field was cured by drying in shocks in the
ordinary way. This last was found so near worthless for feeding
dry, that it was used for litter in the barnyards, and for covering
ice. That preserved in the pit was opened and fed in April last.
My cows ate it all, leaf and stalk, eagerly, without any loss or waste
whatever ; and it was fully equal in value to the same quantity of the
best corn-fodder preserved in the pits.
First, The preserving pits must be wholly air-tight, so that when
sealed the air cannot come in contact with the food preserved.
Second, The pits should be of such form and dimensions as will
best facilitate the settling and compacting of the food into a solid
mass, and when opened for feeding will expose as small a part of the
surface to the atmosphere as practicable.
Third, The fodder must be cut green, when in the best condition
or in bloom, passed immediately through the cutting-machine to
reduce it to uniform short lengths of not more than one inch, and at
once be deposited and trod firmly into the pit ; sufficient salt being
used to render it palatable, but no more. As fermentation, which
will commence at once, proceeds, and the mass settles, the cutting
and treading-in of fresh fodder must be continued at intervals of
thirty-six to forty-eight hours (depending upon the rapidity with
which fermentation and settling proceeds) , until settling has ceased,
and no more can be trod into the pit.
CORRESPONDENCE OF O. B. POTTER. 93
Fourth, The pit as soon as completely filled, and settling has
ceased, must be securely sealed to exclude the air wholly and arrest
fermentation, and must be kept so sealed until opened for use.
The pits being now full, and settling having nearly or quite ceased,
must be immediately and thoroughly sealed over the whole top surface
of the fodder by a well-compacted layer of clean earth not less than
six inches thick. This covering of earth should be afterwards exam-
ined at least twice, at intervals of a week or ten days, and any cracks
that appear be closed with fresh earth. A covering of straw or hay
not more than two inches thick may be laid over the fodder before
the earth covering is applied, but this is immaterial other than as a
matter of neatness. In feeding, the fodder should be cut down and
fed from one end of the pit in sections of convenient width, the earth
being first removed from each section. If open pits are used, a layer
of hay or straw may be put over the pit when filled and sealed, to
protect the contents from frost in winter, if necessary. I have not
found any pressure or weight upon the fodder other than the earth-
covering required. If additional weight is desired, a heavier covering
of earth will accomplish this, and make the sealing at the same time
more perfect.
MIXING FODDER IN THE PITS.
Much advantage will be gained by mixing clover and grass t in
which clover predominates, in the same pit through fodder-corn,
millet, or sorghum. The clover becomes, after the first fermenta
tion, a putty-like mass, which fills the interstices in coarser and more
fibrous fodder, and thus makes the whole much more compact and
weighty than it would otherwise be> while it improves the quality of
the food.
By this system, red-clover, fodder-corn, pearl-millet, or Guinea-
corn, hitherto the most uncertain, difficult, and expensive, to cure
and preserve of all our crops, become the easiest and least expensive
in these respects, while their value as cattle-food is greatly increased
over the same crops cured by drying in the usual mode. This system,
when understood and practised throughout the country, may become
no mean factor in our national prosperity.
By it, through the great increase of the best cattle-food, which
may be produced at greatly-diminished cost upon the worn lauds of
the Eastern and Middle States, these lands may be renewed and
enriched, and their owners be materially aided, especially in dairying,
94 H. B. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
in their now difficult competition with the cheaper and richer lands of
the West.
By it, also, the Southern States, below the line of our Northern
grasses, are enabled to feed and fatten their cattle in winter and
summer as well, and nearly or quite as cheaply, as where tame grasses
abound.
If I can aid the farmers of Massachusetts any by my opinions, I
shall be glad. I was bred upon a farm in Charlemont, Mass. ; and if
the same energy, attention, and pluck were in operation there now,
upon the farms, the hills would be green and covered with flocks to
their tops, and that State would be less dependent than now on the
West and South, while we would continue to be the nursery of hardy
manhood for business and the nation. I shall be glad to see and
read your book.
Very truly yours,
O. B. POTTER,
26 Lafayette Place (Farm at Sing Sing, N.Y.).
CHAPTER XXIII.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
CTA-OOIB
WASSAIC, N.Y., FEB. 5, 1881.
MR. H. R. STEVENS.
Dear Sir:
Yours in relation to ensilage is just received. Your questions are
very comprehensive to be answered by one who has had but one sea-
son's experience, and that by no means thorough : consequently, I
must first confess that on many points I should be a very blind guide,
and can support my opinions by very few facts.
I will take up your questions in order.
I am quite sure that the large-growing Southern corn is best adapted
for the purpose of ensilage^ ; but new varieties with stronger tendency
COliRESPONDENCE OF JACOB PUGSLEY. 95
to great size uud product of sugar may soon be produced, or perhaps
are already to be found.
The cost varies so much in different localities, owing to price of
labor and quality of soil, that my statement is worthless, except for
this vicinity. For me, about five dollars per acre is the cost of getting
the corn ready for the sickle, then about seventy-five cents per ton
for putting in the silo, if it is not to be hauled more than one-fourth
mile. This does not include any fertilizers.
My corn was on a poor field, with no manure. It yielded about
twelve tons per acre. The season was rather favorable to a large
growth of stalks.
I have not ensilaged any thing but corn. Shall put up some clover
and grass next year.
I used a Daniels cutter, which worked very well. I have no
knowledge of other machines, but think that a much larger one with
more powerful feed-rollers would be better.
A length of less than three-fourths inch has proved satisfactory.
I would advise cutting shorter rather than longer. I have built one
silo of two compartments, each twenty-five by sixteen feet, and ten
feet deep ; shall raise the walls to fourteen feet next season. I com-
menced the work late, and the walls were not properly hardened when
it was full, so that I did not dare put on more than six inches of
stone.
The ensilage was a little more sour than I expected, owing, I think,
entirely to the air not being sufficiently driven out by pressure. Still
the cattle eat it well, and do well on it, though not as greedy for it as
in other cases reported.
I employed four men to cut the corn, and lay it on wagons, which
were driven close beside the corn, three men at the cutter (I do not
doubt that in a year or two we shall get on just as well with only one
at the cutter) , and two men in the silo to level and pack the ensilage,
the silo standing with one end in side hill, so that the cutter was at
the top, also a boy to drive teams ; in all, ten men and four teams.
Part of these I hired for the job, and part were my own men and
teams. We put up twenty tons per day, working about four-fifths of
the day. Counting my own men and teams at the same rate as those
I hired, the cost was seventy-five cents per ton, including board of
men and teams. The cost per ton of ensilage varies so much with
the quality of land, and the season, that one year's trial is hardly a
safe basis for an opinion. Allowing six per cent on twice the selling
96 n. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
value of the land, my own cost me about two dollars per ton in the
silo.
In regard to size and shape of silo, every thing would depend on
the size of farm and the method of using ensilage. If one intended to
make the ensilage merely a small adjunct to the other farming, then a
comparatively large single silo would be best ; but my own opinion is,
that, where ensilage is practised, the whole arable portion of the farm
will be devoted to it ; and in this case smaller silos, holding about a
hundred and twenty-five tons each, will be far better, as we shall
have a succession of crops to put in. Also, one of the smaller silos
can be filled sooner, which I regard as of much importance. To hold
the above amount, a silo must be twenty-five feet long, sixteen feet
wide, and fourteen feet deep, and must be filled a second time after
the first filling has settled. Six such silos in a set will hold feed for
a hundred cows, allowing one each for rye and millet, and two each
for clover and corn. Then, in feeding, a variety can be given each
day. If built in this way the silos would, of course, be placed side
by side ; being, in fact, one great silo with partitions, each compart-
ment having its own opening into the stable.
In nine cases out of ten, concrete of water-lime, sand, and small
stones, will be far cheaper and better than any other material.
I have been feeding ensilage once a day to cows for three months ;
have fed no other stock.
The cows eat it clean, and do well on it. Some that I have fed
for two weeks on ensilage three times a day, and no other food
except about eight pounds of corn-meal and bran, have gained fully
ten per cent in milk ; previously, they were fed the same grain, ensi-
lage once a day, and good hay ad libitum.
It is immaterial as to what time of the day it is fed. I do not
expose the ensilage to the air before feeding, as fermentation has
already progressed a little too far, owing to the air not being thor-
oughly expelled by pressure immediately after filling the silo.
No perceptible change takes place in the ensilage, if thrown down
in a heap for two or three days before feeding. This may be owing
to the cold weather ; though I think not, but suppose the ensilage to
be in a condition which does not specially induce further decomposi-
tion.
I feed about twenty pounds once a day to each of my cows, eight
pounds grain, and what hay they will eat.
I think six tons of ensilage can be put up as cheaply as one ton of
CORRESPONDENCE OF JACOB PUGSLEY. 97
good hay, including in expenses all labor and interest on land. Good
hay cannot be produced at less than twelve dollars per ton, and I think
ensilage can be as easily furnished at two dollars.
My milk is sold to a condensing factory : the inspector could not
detect any marked difference between that made on ensilage and that
made from hay.
The difference in cost of feeding on ensilage or on hay would not
be important, probably rather in favor of ensilage, if stables and
silos were properly arranged.
Nearly all my cows ate the ensilage at the first feeding, and all of
them after the second or third ration.
I have no sheep.
I am convinced that we shall soon be feeding our cattle upon ensi-
lage in the summer, as well as in winter, though I have never prac-
tised soiling.
After weighing my feed with some care, I am satisfied that fifty-
five pounds per day of ensilage, with eight pounds of grain, is a full
feeding for a cow of ordinary size, giving not more than ten quarts
of milk per day. Heavier milkers should have more grain, which
should not be corn, but oats, bran, linseed or cotton-seed meals.
This refers to corn ensilage ; probably clover, rye, or millet would
take much less of both grain and ensilage.
I do not see any marked difference in the appearance of cattle fed
on hay or on ensilage. I think the chief points for most farmers
to bear in mind in going into this system are : First, good walls to
the silo. Any farmer can make these by getting clean sand and good
cement, and following the directions given for mixing and laying
walls ; and this should be done in the spring, so as to allow plenty of
time for the walls to harden, before any strain is put on them. Sec-
ond, cutting the ensilage short. I think a very large cutter, and
steam-power for driving it, will be found best and cheapest in the
end. Small farmers could combine to purchase these, and also in
the labor of filling their silos. Third, quick filling of silos, not more
than three days at most.
Indeed, wherever practicable, I should advise that the silo be filled,
and the stone put on, in one day, even at some extra expense. This
point is not insisted upon by writers on the subject, but I shall need
considerable experience to convince me that it is not a very important
matter. Fourth, heavy pressure, not less than one foot of stone and
more, if possible, should be placed on the ensilage, instantly after
98 H. It. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
filling. Whoever will carry out thoroughly these four demands of
the system, will be more than satisfied with ensilage.
The advantages of ensilage are several. In the first place, it will
enable any active farmer to keep twice his present amount of an}*
kind of stock, and, within three years, to raise fodder for a cow on
every acre of arable land, and also to increase this amount thereafter
indefinitely ; being practically limited only by his personal capacity
and judgment. At present prices of cheese and butter, there would
be twent} r dollars per acre net profit for every acre, which would keep
a cow, after paying for all labor and grain.
The system being equally adapted to feeding sheep, or hogs, or
making beef, will prevent any undue increase of dairying. The
remoter consequences of the greats-increased production of the soil
are incalculable : the lessening of labor, the improvement of food,
and many like advantages, will soon follow the general inauguration
of this s} r stem.
It will also assist enormously in making mankind independent of
the weather ; for the constant use of the plough and cultivator, and the
raising of strong, growing crops, will greatly obviate the difficulties
from drought ; while the serious loss and expense of harvesting crops
in wet seasons will be very greatly diminished by this method of pre-
serving. Very great improvements will, doubtless, soon be made in
all the machinery for harvesting crops, so as to reduce the labor ne-
cessary as much proportionately as it is done in manufacturing, com-
pared with the processes of thirty years ago. It is quite probable,
too, that farming on this system will become attractive to men of
executive capacity, and that organizing faculty which has hitherto
sought its fields of action everywhere except on the farm, to the great
detriment of agriculture. If I have omitted any thing essential, you
can write me again. I expect to increase my silos materially next
season.
Yours,
J. PUGSLEY.
CORRESPONDENCE OF F. S. PEER. 91)
CHAPTER XXIV.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
. IF. s. IFIEIEIR,.
E. PALMYRA, N.Y.
MY DEAR SIR :
In reply to your request concerning the result of my experience
with " ensilage," it may not be out of place to say that 1 did not
adopt the system because it was a new thing, nor as an experiment ;
for I have neither time to devote nor money to expend on uncertain-
ties, but because through the evidence of my five senses I was con-
vinced that it was practical. I saw stock of all kinds eating and
thriving. I tasted, and found nothing disagreeable. In smelling could
detect nothing offensive ; and when I heard, from men on whose word
and judgment I could rely, the same universal testimony of its mer-
its, I began to feel that it was no longer an experiment, but the legiti-
mate offspring of the mother of invention, which like other great
improvements are born to the day of necessity.
It was therefore without a misgiving that I set to work overhauling
an old stone carriage-house. It was easily converted into a silo by
taking out the hay-loft floor and stalls before walling up the doors and
windows, except one in the gable end, through which the silo was
filled ; another in the opposite end on the ground, nearly level with
the bottom of the silo, which we find very convenient in taking out
the ensilage. The walls were given a coat of water-lime, the floor of
cement. The building was eighteen by twenty-eight feet and fifteen
feet deep, inside measurement ; capacity three hundred tons.
Were I to build new, should make the building longer and nar-
rower, say fourteen by forty feet, and fifteen or eighteen feet deep.
The deeper the better. It takes no more plank or weight to press
ensilage that is fifteen feet in depth than it does five, and requires no
more roofing.
100 H. K. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
My experience in growing corn-fodder is, that it is much better
sown in drills, three or three and a half feet apart. It then can be
cultivated, which will add at least one- third to its growth.
As the broad leaves of the growing corn receive from the air and
sun a large per cent of its feeding value, it is therefore very essen-
tial that the stalks should have plenty of room for the full develop-
ment of its leaves ; for in them is contained the principal virtue of the
plant as a food. Therefore, in determining what kind of corn is best
to grow for fodder, the most leafy variety should be selected. I find
the Western Dent to be better in this respect, than our common field-
corn.
Last season we sowed at the rate of two, two and a half, and three
bushels of corn per acre. I am convinced that two are sufficient.
We put it in with our common field-grain drill, letting the tubes of
tooth No. 1 and 3 discharge into No. 2, closing No. 4, letting 5 and
7 into No. 6, closing 8, uniting 9 and 11 into No. 10.
In a nine-tooth drill begin by closing No. 1, and proceed as above
described. The eleven-tooth drill puts in 3, the nine-tooth drill 2,
rows at a time, the wheel-tracks serving as a guide on return bouts.
Began harvesting the fodder, one man managed the reaper, two to
bind, assisted occasionally by the one who reaped. Two men, each
with a one-horse lumber- wagon, drew the fodder to the silo, one load-
ing in the field while the other was unloading at the cutter, a " Silver
and Deming," manufactured at Salem, O., with a twelve-foot carrier
attached, to convey the fodder into the silo.
After cutting it three-eighths of an inch long, which it did as fast
as two men could feed it, it was run by an eight-horse-power thresh-
ing-engine, thirty to forty pounds of steam being sufficient to run it,
four knives making five hundred and fifty to six hundred revolutions
per minute. A man was employed in the building, to spread and
tread down the fodder. Besides the engineer, eight men were four
days doing the work, putting in five and a half acres at the rate of
forty tons per day. We supposed that five acres would be enough
to fill the silo ; but, with the addition of a half-acre, it was then but
half-filled.
When through cutting, we covered the fodder with a foot and a
half of uncut straw, on which we placed a covering of rough two-
inch hemlock plank : on them was piled stone a foot or more in depth.
The silo was opened Nov. 12 ; and the fodder was found in a good
condition, except up and down the door-jamb some ten or twelve
CORRESPONDENCE OF F. S. PEER. 101
bushels were spoiled. We began forthwith to feed ensilage to all my
stock, sheep, colts, calves, and milch-cows, at the rate of fifty
bushels per day.
Having no personal knowledge of the chemical analysis of ensi-
lage, I do not propose to enter upon a hair-splitting discussion of its
value as compared with other feed. The question that every practi-
cal farmer wants to know is, "What is the result?" I will state
as briefly as possible what I have found to be its influence as a feed
for milch-cows, upon the quantity, qualit} r , and color of butter.
Before opening the silo, we fed corn-stalks, having no hay, morn-
ing and night, wheat-straw at noon. As may be supposed, the but-
ter was white, lacked flavor, and the grain more inclined to be salvy :
it was poor stuff. After a few da}'s we added two quarts of meal,
with roots (yellow cord beets) at noon. The quantity of milk was
somewhat increased, but not as much as I expected it would be. On
opening the silo, Nov. 12, we began feeding ensilage twice a da}',
morning and night. The fourth day the quantity of milk was nearly
double : as to the butter, it was nearly equal in flavor and color to
that made in summer from grass. We send it to our regular custom-
ers without a particle of coloring. We continued feeding in this way
for five or six weeks with the same pleasing results. When, in order
to dispose of our coarse fodder, we substituted corn-stalks and bar-
ley-straw for the morning feeding of ensilage, the change in the
amount of milk and butter was very marked, shrinking about quarter:
the color was considerable lighter. Hoping to make up for this
deficiency, we added two quarts of corn-meal per head to the ration
of dry fodder ; but it did not fully compensate for the feeding of
ensilage in the quality and color of the butter, while the amount was
increased to about the same as from the two feedings of ensilage.
We have now been feeding ensilage for three months to milch cows,
colts, young cattle, and sheep, at the rate of forty bushels per day.
The one hundred and sixty tons is about half gone, requiring less
than three acres to keep eighty head, fifty-five of which are long-wool
sheep ; total, equivalent to thirty-five head of cattle.
The following is the table of cost of five and one-half acres of
ensilage fodder or one hundred and sixty tons :
102
H. B. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
HARVESTING, CUTTING, PACKING, AND PRESSING.
Total.
Pei-
Acre.
Per
Ton.
Eight hands, $1.00 per clay, four days ....
$32 00
Engine and engineer, $4.00 per day ....
16 00
Fuel for engine, $1.20 per day .....
4 80
"Total cost of labor to secure 160 tons ensilage .
Cost of seed, filling ground, and cultivating
$52 80
27 50
$9 60
5 00
.33
.17
Total cost
$80 30
$14 60
.50
This does not include use of building and tools. I feel sure that I
can do the work for less another season. I cannot speak too highly
of the reaper that we used to cut the fodder, a " D. M. Osborn, No.
3," manufactured at Auburn, N.Y. It did the work in a most satis-
factor} r manner without a break. The corn had attained an enormous
growth, from nine to ten feet high, cutting two rows at a time, throw-
ing off bundles with every other rake.
It is also needless to add that I am well pleased with my first trial,
and expect to ensilage more next fall.
Yours respectfully,
F. S. PEER.
CHAPTER XXV.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
:M::R,. -w. a.
NONANTUM HILL NURSERY, BRIGHTON, MASS., FEB. 22, 1881.
MR. H. R. STEVENS.
Dear Sir:
My experiments with ensilage were limited to Hungarian grass
during the season of 1880. Noticing the statements of Dr. Faxon,
in regard to his success with grass cut veiy early in the season, and
in a succulent state, packed away without passing through the
cutter, I made inquiries of him and of Dr. Bailey and others as to
CORRESPONDENCE OF W. C. STRONG. 103
the probable result of putting down Hungarian in a silo without
cutting. It w r as the opinion of all, that, if carefully done, it would
keep. Wishing to avoid the expense of a cutter and steam-power,
I determined to venture a trial. 1 filled a silo, twenty feet by twenty
feet and ten feet deep, with perfectly clean Hungarian, when in just
the condition to cut for hay, spreading it evenly, and treading with
great care, filling about two feet in depth daily. When finished, it
was covered, and weighted after the most approved manner. The
result is, that I am now carting the contents of the silo to the manure-
heaps, to work in as compost. It is now plain to see, that, notwith-
standing the thorough treading and weighting, enough oxygen would
remain in the stems and small spaces to keep up the fermentation
until the ensilage was ruined. Of course, every one is now wise
enough to see that I ought to have known better than to make the
trial ; but I can comfort myself with the credit of a voluntary mar-
tyrdom for the public good.
This first experiment was at my house-farm in Newton ; but I
also had a twelve-acre lot in Brighton sowed with this seed, and
designed for ha}*. Immediately after sowing, the weather was hot
and dry ; which checked the seed in starting, but developed a prodi-
gious crop of rag-weed (Ambrosia artemisice folia) . As a conse-
quence, the grass was largely choked out, the enormous growth being
at least sixty per cent of weeds. What to do with this burden, was
the question. Having a deeper-seated water-tank and also a good
engine, all at hand, I had only to buy a Baldwin cutter, and at little
expense I could determine what the new process would do for
weeds. Of course we cut them fine, and a man on horseback
packed them down solid. We averaged about two feet in depth per
da}', and somewhat over one hundred tons within the week of cut-
ting. The heat was so well driven out as the work proceeded, that
there was not much doubt that the stuff would keep. Its value was
another question, which could only be answered by trial. If you say
it is unreasonable to expect to take out any better than 3*011 put in,
I will simply give facts in reply. Having no cattle to feed, I sold
the ensilage to a milkman at six dollars per ton ; he doing the cart-
ing for a distance of four miles, and paying the weigh fees. As the
feed is dripping wet, it weighs well, and turns out to be worth a good
de:^l more than if it had been pure Hungarian and had been made
into hay. The very strange thing is this : that the cows are wild to
get the fodder, lick up the last vestige of it, give a good flow of
104 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
excellent milk, and seem to be in excellent condition. The cows are
emphatic in their agreement with their owner and myself, that the
food is better than when it went in. It will keep several da} T s with-
out injury after taking it out, and is considered b}~ the purchaser to
be the cheapest food he can give his cows. Of course, it is a little
mortifying to make public my first failure, and second quasi-success ;
but it is only by these various trials that we can determine the true
value of this new process. With corn as the material, and a fine
cut and solid pack to follow, the result need not in any case be
doubtful. That Hungarian will keep perfectly when cut, I have no
doubt ; neither do I doubt its high value for fodder ; but, of course,
it will not }deld any thing like the weight per acre that can be ob-
tained from corn. Taking into consideration the enormous yield
which can be expected, the ease and certainty in harvesting in an}^
weather, the great economy in stowage, the ease with which the
fodder can be taken out and distributed, and, last and chiefest, the
high value which this succulent food possesses, taking these and
other minor advantages into account, it is safe to predict a new era
in agriculture, destined to produce changes which no one can fore-
tell. The importance of the subject cannot be over-estimated ; and,
if you can throw light upon it, 3*ou will be a public benefactor.
Yours very truly,
W. C. STRONG.
CHAPTER XXVI.
REPORT FROM
NASHUA, N.H.
LAST summer Hon. Charles Williams built a silo, and filled it with
green corn-fodder. The silo is twenty feet long, nine feet wide, and
thirteen feet deep, and will hold about fifty-eight tons. It is built of
cement and stone, the interior sides being perfectly smooth and per-
REPORT OF DR. W. H. TANNER. 105
pendicular, and cost about a hundred and forty- four dollars, besides
the labor of excavation. The silo was filled last summer by Mr.
Williams, with green corn- fodder cut into pieces about half an inch
long. It was covered over with close-fitting plank nine feet long, and
weighted down with pig-iron. Mr. Williams did not use any straw
on top or under the planks. He used a Daniels cutter made at Wood-
stock, Vt. , to chop up the feed ; the cutter being operated in the
building over the silo, and the power communicated by a belt from
his engine.
Mr. Williams began to feed from his silo on the 1st of November
last. The ensilage was found to be slightly acid, and alcoholic fer-
mentation had taken place to a certain extent. His horses showed no
great liking for it, but would eat it readily when mixed with meal.
His cows took to it with great relish, and immediately began to
increase their milk, which he claims was improved in quality as well
as quantity. In addition to the ensilage, the cows were fed about six
quarts of shorts a day throughout November, and grew fat, and
looked neatly. For hogs and poultry Mr. Williams thinks this kind
of fodder is unsurpassed ; and for milch cows he regards it far better
than any crop of roots or corn, both of which he has tried. The
ensilage settled about two feet.
CHAPTER XXVII.
REPORT OF
XDIR,. "VST. HI.
AMENIA, DUTCHESS CO., N.Y.
DR. TANNER built his silo thirty-five feet long, fifteen feet wide,
twenty feet deep. There were twelve acres of corn sowed for ensi-
lage, of the horse-tooth variety. His silo is placed against the barn.
The barn is large and well-equipped, broad stalls for about seventy
cows. The silo was filled within three feet of the top. The ensilage
106 H. K. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
settled about three feet. When the silo was opened, the ensilage was in
a perfect state of preservation ; and his success in feeding cattle, and
the increased quantity of milk, is the same as others, and very pleasing
to the doctor. He will build more stables another year, keep more
cattle, and make more room for ensilage. As the doctor says, "Ensi-
lage with me is a success in every particular. The more I feed, the
more I am pleased. It is only a question of a little time about farmers
all building silos. They must do so, or starve. I am feeding a hun-
dred cows two feeds a day, with the best results."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
TH:O:M:.A_S,
OF VERMONT,
Says he raised several acres of corn the past season, and built a silo
of stone, forty feet in length, fifteen feet wide, and the same in
height. The walls were heavy, and laid in cement : the bottom and
sides were plastered with cement also. He commenced in September
to cut up the fodder with a Baldwin No. 18 fodder-cutter, which
makes it very fine, driven with horse-power. Thinks he could cut,
and put in the silo, cheaper than to bind in the field, and, when dry,
draw to the barn. This fodder kept finely, and was liked by all his
stock, including the pigs. He is sanguine he can raise corn and beef
cheaper than it can be produced at the West, and brought here ;
thinks two tons of the ensilage will be worth one of hay ; is satisfied
that this preserved fodder will keep the year around ; would raise
two crops on the land if possible, one of winter rye, and one of
corn, and ensilage both ; believes, if well kept, as good milk will
be obtained in winter as in summer, if some grain is fed in connec-
tion. He prefers cotton-seed meal for this purpose. Such a silo as
he built would not cost two hundred dollars. Feeds about fifty
pounds of this to a cow, a day.
REPORT OF HON. J. B. BODWELL. 107
CHAPTER XXIX.
REPORT FROM
HOIST. J\ IB.
PINE GKOVE FARM, HALLOWELL, ME.
WE visited Pine Grove Farm, Hallowell, to examine the ensilage
now being taken from Mr. Boclwell's silo. About sixty-five tons of
corn-fodder were put into this silo last summer, and all the rules laid
down by those who had experimented with it carefully observed.
Nearly half of this amount has already been fed out, and a daily feed
is now given to each of the cattle and sheep. They eat it well, and
thrive upon it. When this food was first given, the daily feed of
corn-meal was reduced one quart, and this has been followed since ;
and the cattle thrive better than with the full feed of corn-meal. Mr.
Bodwell, by his experiment, has settled three points in his own mind
with regard to the ensilage of green fodder: viz., that the fodder cap
be preserved in the silo, that cattle and other animals eat it with ap-
parent relish, and that they thrive upon it. He noticed in the milch
cows a marked increase in the flow of milk soon after the feeding of
ensilage was commenced. Mr. Bodwell has preferred to build a silo
that will last for all time. A temporary silo, one that will answer for
a season or two, can be very cheaply built.
108 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
CHAPTER XXX.
REPORT OF
- E. ID.
FITCHBURG, MASS.
LAST year I planted about an acre, and ensilaged it in August. I
procured a Baldwin cutter, which cut fodder seven-eighths of an inch
long, and put in about twenty-five tons. I covered the fodder with
straw, and then with plank, and weighted it with stones. A few days
later a slight odor was perceptible, which continued four or five weeks.
I took out a specimen at cattle-show, found it keeping well. I com-
menced feeding, the 2d of December, and have enough to last till
March. Cattle do very well on it ; better than on hay. The ensilage
should be put in hard. Stone and cement should be used in con-
structing silos. The walls should be sixteen inches thick. I am
intending to put in ensilage enough to fill my barn with cattle. I can
raise ensilage at two dollars per ton. I would build the silo under
my barn if convenient. I think ensilage will take the front rank as
feed. I have made a failure of curing corn-fodder, and feeding it to
stock. My cattle did not eat ensilage readily at first, but in a few
days some of my cows would leave hay and rowen to eat ensilage.
If I had a supply, I would feed seven-eighths ensilage, and would
prefer all ensilage to all hay. Clover, Hungarian, and other grasses
can be used for ensilage, but I should not ensilage good English hay.
I took a piece of grass-land, ploughed it, put on twelve loads of
manure and half a barrel of phosphate, and sowed corn in rows. It
grew so fast, and shaded the ground so, I was not troubled with
weeds ; did not touch the crop till I harvested it. I should sow the
seed five or six inches apart, let it grow as large as it will ; should
sow from first of June till July ; the early part of July is early enough
if the land is rich.
REPORT FROM COL. R. H. DULANEY. 109
CHAPTER XXXI.
REPORT FROM
COL. &,. HI.
OF LOUDOUN COUNTY, MARYLAND.
(FROM SOUTHERN PLANTER AND FARMER.)
I PREPARED fifteen acres of sod-land, by top-dressing it with all the
manure from the cellar of my cattle-barn, where I had fed eighty-two
cattle and twelve horses four hundred and fifty barrels of corn,
besides their long food, during the winter. After the land was
ploughed, and thoroughly harrowed and rolled, I drilled in three
bushels of corn and four hundred pounds of bone to the acre. By
stopping alternate tubes of the drill, the rows were eighteen inches
apart, and there were from eight to twelve to the foot in the row. I
had intended to plough this crop three times ; but after one ploughing
with single-shovel plough there came several hours of rain, after which
the corn grew so rapidly that it soon met across the row, and could
not be ploughed again. I dug a pit seventy-eight feet long, twenty
feet wide, and twelve feet deep, and lined it with a two-foot stone
wall, which was continued for three feet above the ground, and
cemented the sides and bottom.
I should have cut the corn, which was the heaviest I ever saw, as
soon as the ears began to form ; but had to wait until I finished the
pit.
When I commenced, some of the corn was too old for roasting-
ears, and the blades near the ground had lost their green color. The
field was four hundred yards from the pit. It required three and
sometimes four first-rate hands to cut the corn ; two ox-carts and
one four-horse wagon, with an extra hand to assist the drivers to
load, to haul the corn, which was being cut up into five-eighth-inch
pieces, by two eighteen-inch cutting-boxes. It required one man at
each box to feed, and two men to keep each supplied with the
fodder.
110 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
The boxes were at the side, equally distant from each end of the
pit, and driven by an eight-horse engine. The ensilage was kept
equally distributed over the floor, and six large farm-horses were
ridden over it from ten to twelve, and from five to seven o'clock, to
pack it. As the horses could not pack that against the walls, and at
the angles at the ends, that had to be trodden down by the men, when
the engine was stopped.
We were fourteen days with fourteen men in filling the pit to within
three feet of the top. I then ran enough straw through the cutting-
box to cover the whole mass three inches deep ; then covered with
two-inch boards laid across the pit, and the boards with stone two
feet deep.
On the 10th of January I opened the pit by taking off six feet of
stone and plank. When I saw the straw black and rotten, I feared
that the prophecy of my neighbors, "that I would have an immense
quantity of rotten fodder to haul out in the spring," had been fulfilled.
But, on getting to the fodder, I found only an inch deep a little
moulded, and all the rest, except in the angles of the building, and
against a part of the wall (from which the cement had fallen), in
perfect order. Eighty-two cattle are eating with great relish thirty-
seven pounds each day, and two hundred ewes one and a half pounds
each.
I have now fed for three weeks, and have only used about one-sixth
of the ensilage. At this rate it will keep my cattle and sheep until
April 20, at which time I usually turn on grass. From a flock of
one hundred sheep t*t have been fed on ensilage since the pit was
opened, I have lost but one ; whilst from two hundred and fifty fed
on corn, straw, and fodder, I lost thirty in two weeks. These ewes
were heavy with lambs, and the change from grass to entirely dry
food caused constipation, and that, inflammation, which caused their
death. For the last week I have been feeding most of my sheep on
ensilage ; and, except some that were sick when I commenced, I have
lost none.
The fifteen acres of ensilaged corn would have fed eighty cattle
one hundred and twenty-five clays, the usual length of our winter,
with the addition of one gallon of corn a day to each steer. If
fifty cubic feet make a ton, then I had two hundred and eighty-three
tons, which cost to cut, haul, and pack away, two hundred dollars,
less than one dollar a ton.
THE VALUE OF GREEN FORAGE CROPS. Ill
CHAPTER XXXII.
:M:.A.:D.A.:M::E]
THE WELL-KNOWN TEACHER AND SINGER,
says, "I am well pleased with the result of my little silo. All my
cattle eat ensilage with great relish, leaving good English hay for the
ensilage maize. The quality and quantity of milk have improved
since the cows have been fed on ensilage."
CHAPTER XXXIIL
IE.
AN EXTENSIVE FARMER OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY,
says, "I have never seen a cow eat the best of hay when offered
ensilage : it is always ensilage first, and hay afterward. It is the
most profitable investment I ever made, and there is no reason why
thousands of farmers may not make it as profitable as I have."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE FEEDING OF STOCK.
EACH and every farmer has his own mind and way of feeding stock
upon the farm. Some feed with hay and shorts, some with hay and
corn-meal ; some hay, meal, and shorts ; and others hay, roots, and
112 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
grains, etc. Have you ever tried the cutting of the dry fodder by
running through a fodder- cutter, cutting it into short pieces ? Wet
the dry fodder enough to moisten, take enough for one day's feed,
mix this evenly with the kind and quantity of grain you use, and
feed ; if it stands several hours before feeding, your cattle will like
it all the better. By this way of feeding you will save fifteen per
cent of dry fodder, and those who have tried it say a larger per cent.
If you are feeding on ensilage in part, and wish part dry fodder, cut
in short pieces, mix ensilage, cut fodder, and required quantity of
grain ; this makes a good feed. Sixty pounds ensilage from corn-
fodder, or forty-five pounds of clover ensilaged, is good feed for one
cow per day. This quantity is a fair average. These quantities will
keep a cow in good condition, with an increased flow of milk, with
better health than when fed on hay. With six quarts shorts and
sixty pounds of ensilage per day, your cows will gain flesh, and do
better than when fed on ensilage alone ; add to this feed one quart
of corn-meal, you get a good feed ; and I think this quantity of
grain with ensilage is not only the most economical, but is better for
cows than to feed a larger quantity. To fatten cattle, sixty pounds
ensilage (more or less as they eat up clean) , with four pounds corn-
meal per day, will rapidly fatten them. I believe corn-fodder ensi-
lage fed with clover, rowen, or any of our grasses ensilaged, is a
better and more natural food for our stock than the corn ensilage
alone.
CHAPTER XXXV.
r
ENSILAGE FOR POULTRY.
THE feeding of ensilage to poultry is eaten and relished as well as
when fed to horses, cows, and pigs, and, by various experiments, has
proved to be as nutritious for poultry as for cows. When ensilage is
fed to poultry they not only eat it greedily, but it makes them smart
and active : have a healthy look and a fine bright plumage, which is a
sure indication of good health. During the winter season ensilage,
when fed to poultry, mixing with it a proportional part of shorts or
corn-meal, will increase the laying of eggs, and fatten them very
ENSILAGE FOR POULTRY. 113
readily. As ensilage and corn-meal fatten cattle, so with poultry
they lay on fat very readily.
Experiments tried prove that poultry fed on ensilage, with a suffi-
cient quantity of grain, will do better in every particular than when
fed in the old way upon grains, at one-fourth the cost, or at a saving
of about seventy-five per cent. One hundred fowls, take them as
they run, large and small, will cost, to feed them one year, about one
hundred dollars. To feed the same on ensilage and the required
qiuintlty of grain would cost not to exceed twenty-five dollars. Ensi-
lage alone is self-sustaining : the poultry will do well and lay well.
To feed on ensilage alone would cost about fourteen dollars ; and to
add to this shorts, corn-meal, buckwheat mixed with the ensilage,
occasionally scraps, plenty of gravel, ashes, etc., they will do better
than by any known way of feeding. One hundred fowls should pro-
duce, at a low estimate, eight hundred and thirty-three dozen eggs
in one year, besides laying eggs to set about thirty hens. These
eight hundred and thirty-three dozen eggs at twenty cents per dozen
would equal $166.60, and, by fair success, should raise a hundred
and fifty chickens. The reason I discuss this subject, poultry, is to
show that hundreds of mechanics, laborers, etc., who are owners of
a small house, with an acre or two of land, by properly preparing an
acre of land, and planting it to corn for ensilage, can raise twenty-
five tons to the acre ; average cost would be about two dollars per
ton in the silo ; can build a small silo, not to cost over twenty-five
to forty dollars, and less than that if they can do the work them-
selves ; fill this silo with the ensilage. You can keep a cow the year
round on ten to twelve tons of ensilage, or, if fed with some hay or
grain, less ensilage. With the balance of the twenty-five tons you
can keep from a hundred and fifty to two hundred fowls. Turkeys,
geese, and ducks are greedy for ensilage.
Practical experiments prove these results ; and, for a small invest-
ment, I know of no investment that will surely bring such good
results.
114 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
CORRESPONDENCE FROM
IPIROIFIESSOIR, 0". IMI.
KNOXVILLE, TENN., FEB. 12, 1881
DEAR SIR.
I send you the results of my first month's experiments in feeding.
I regret those with the milch cows are not yet determined. I think
the results speak well for the new food.
The first set (I.) will be continued this month, and I think with
better results, as all the loss occurred in the first part, during the
change from dry to green food. Notwithstanding the loss of weight,
the animals are sleek and healthy looking, and with hearty appetites.
This month I am allowing them as much as they w r ill eat of
ensilage.
Sets 4 and 5 were not only designed to test the relative values of
hay (good timothy and clover mixed) and ensilage, but also those
of corn, cotton seed, and rice-corn meal. This rice, or Egyptian
corn, is the cereal attracting so much attention in Kansas. It is
really the Dhoura, a variety of Sorghum vulgare. The animal fed
on it in Set 4, No. 2, gave the best results of any in the set ; No.
10, in Set 5, the worst in its set (5).
All kinds of stock are exceedingly fond of it ; and I have no hesi-
tation, not only from these experiments, but from my general expe-
rience with it, in pronouncing it fully equal in feeding value to
Indian corn.
EXPERIMENTS IN CATTLE-FEEDING.
115
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116 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
Animals used in experiments, the stock ones of farm. Ages in
last four sets varying from one to three years ; also some difference
in blood, majority short-horn or Devon grades. In Set 1, animals
stabled all the time, all others allowed to run out during day. No.
14 greatly in favor of ensilage, as showing its milk-producing quali-
ties : cow not only came back to her milk, but gave a good flow during
its continuance. Bull No. 16 was an animal singularly savage and
unprofitable ; we have been anxious to get rid of him for some time.
With these allowances, and the further facts, that, for the first week,
the animals ate the ensilage freely, but not as greedily as afterwards ;
that they were (as will always be the case in changing from dry to
green food) scoured for three or four days ; that the month was the
coldest ever known, and that all the loss was in the first ten days ;
that No. 9 virtually held her own, the experiments even of this set
are favorable to ensilage. Still if one wishes to do more- than
merely "maintain" his animals, the ensilage must be enriched (as
I hold) by albuminous food. Hence, if due allowance be made for
previous treatment of Nos. 1 and 4, Set II. gave better results, as
these two animals did not eat more than one-half of the rations
allowed them. In Set III., Nos. 12 and 13 more than doubled
No. 7 ; the difference in favor of this set over II. showing the
value of albuminous matters. Set V. compared with IV. again gives
results decidedly in favor of ensilage ; No. 8 more than doubling-
No. 3, and No. 11, No. 5. No. 10 was a grade Devon; No. 2 a
grade short-horn ; hence the latter had the advantage of blood. The
results on the whole are very favorable to ensilage.
Wishing abundant success to your new work, I am
Yours respectfully,
J M. M'BRYDE.
CHAPTEE XXXVII.
FROM CHARLES L. FLINTS BOOK ON GRASSES AND FORAGE-PLANTS
(A VALUABLE AND INSTRUCTIVE WORK),
RED CLOVER ( Trifolium pratense) , though not included in the family
of grasses, is not only extensively cultivated, but is found to be one
of the most valuable and economical forage-plants. It belongs to
GRASSES AND FORAGE-PLANTS.
117
the pulse-family, or Leguminosae, which includes the larger portion
of forage-plants called "artificial grasses," in distinction from the
Gramineae, the only true, and often called the "natural," grasses.
The generic name trefoil, or trifolium, is derived from the Latin
" tres" (three) and "folium" (a leaf) ; and the genus can be very
readily distinguished by the number and arrangement of its leaves in
three leaflets, and flowers in dense oblong or globular heads.
The stems of red clover are ascending, somewhat hairy ; leaflets oval
or obovate, often notched at the end, and marked on the upper side
with a pale spot ; heads ovate, and set directly upon the stalk, instead
of upon branches. This species is regarded as by far the most im-
portant of the whole genus for the practical purposes of agriculture.
It has passed into a number of varieties, one of which is biennial,
another perennial ; the latter by long cultivation
becoming biennial, while the former, as is true
of most biennial and many annual plants, as-
sumes, to some extent, the character of a peren-
nial, and can be made to last three or four
years, or even more, by simply preventing it
from running to seed. The introduction of
clover into England, it is often said, produced
an entire revolution in her agriculture ; and,
indeed, when we consider how important a part
it plays in our system of farming, we can with
difficulty imagine how our ancestors ever got
on at all in farming without it. Be this as it
may, it is certain that it led to many of the
most important improvements in the rotation of crops. Clover is
very properly regarded as a fertilizer of the soil. The action of
its long and powerful tap-roots is not only mechanical, loosening
the soil, and admitting the air, but also chemical, serving to fix
the gases important to enrich the earth ; and when these roots
decay, they add largely to that black mass of matter we call soil. Jt
serves also, by its luxuriant foliage, to destroy annual weeds which
would spring up on newly-seeded land, especially after imperfect cul-
tivation. But one of the most valuable uses of it, and one too often
overlooked, is to shade the surface of the soil, and thereby increase
its fertility.
Another great advantage in favor of the cultivation of clover con-
sists in its rapid growth. But a few months elapse from the sowing
RED CLOVER.
118
H R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
of the seed before it yields, ordinarily, an abundant and nutritious
crop relished by cattle of all kinds.
Clover-seed should always be sown in the spring of the year in the
climate of New England. It is often
sown upon the late snows of March
or April, and soon finds its way down
to the soil, where, aided by the moist-
ure of early spring, it quickly germi-
nates, and rapidly shoots up its leaf-
stalks.
Hungarian grass, Hungarian millet
(Panicum Germanicum) , has been
cultivated to con-
siderable extent in
this country from
seed received
from France
through the
United-States
Patent Office.
It is an annual
forage plant, in-
troduced into
France in 1815,
where its cultiva-
tion has become
considerably ex-
tended. It ger-
minates readily,
withstands the
drought remarkably, remaining green even when
other vegetation is parched up ; and, if its devel-
opment is arrested by dry weather, the least rain
will restore it to vigor. It has numerous succu-
lent leaves, which furnish an abundance of green
fodder, very much relished by all kinds of stock.
It flourishes in somewhat light and dry soils,
though it attains its greatest luxuriance in soils
of medium consistency, and well manured. It may be sown broad-
cast, and cultivated precisely like the varieties of millet. This grass
HUNGARIAN GRASS.
COMMON MILLET.
GRASSES AND FORAGE-PLANTS. 119
is thought to contain a somewhat higher percentage of nutriment
than the common millet, though I am not aware that it has been
analyzed. It is a leafy plant, and remains green until its seed ma-
tures, and is no doubt valuable for fodder, both green and dry, growing
and maturing in about the same time as common millet. From twenty-
five to thirty bushels of seed to the acre have been obtained.
Common millet (Panicum miliaceum), flowers in large, open,
nodding panicles ; leaves lance-shaped, broad ; stem one to two feet
high ; native of Turkey.
Many varieties of millet have at times been cultivated in this
country, and its culture is gaining favor every year. Millet is one
of the best crops we have for cutting and feeding green for soiling
purposes, since its yield is large, its luxuriant leaves juicy and tender,
and much relished by milch cows and other stock. Cut in the
blossom, as it should be for feeding to cattle, the seed is compara-
tively valueless. If allowed to ripen its seed, the stalk is no more
nutritious, probably, than oat-straw.
Millet requires good soil, and is rather an exhausting crop, but
yields a produce valuable in proportion to the richness of the soil,
and care and expense of cultivation.
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
PREMIUMS OFFERED BY H. R. STEVENS.
I WILL give to the party who raises the greatest number of tons of
fodder-corn per acre, not less than one acre, from seed planted
called Blnnt's Prolific, one hundred dollars in cash ; to the party
who raises the next in quantity, fifty dollars in cash ; to the party
who raises the next in quantity, twenty-five dollars in cash,
making three premiums. First, one hundred dollars ; second, fifty
dollars ; third, twenty- five dollars.
The kind of corn planted to compete for these premiums must be
" Blunt's Prolific." These premiums are offered to any or all
parties in the New England States. Mr. J. J. H. Gregory, the seed
man of the United States, says, " there is no better corn to plant for
fodder- corn than Blunt* s Prolific." Blank certificates, with conditions
to compete for the three premiums offered by me, will be furnished
upon application. Address,
H, R, STEVENS,
Boston, Mass
120 H. JS. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE.
CONCLUSION.
IN conclusion, I think the reader will say I have given in this work
all I promised in the introduction, the practical experience of practi-
cal farmers with silos and ensilage, and I have reason to believe it is
the practical information the farmers want, that will give practical
results with profit for their labor. Is there any doubt of the success
of preserving our green forage crops by ensilage? There is no
doubt ! Then I think I have shown the success is a profitable one.
When the farmer with one silo to-day says, " I must build larger,
I must have two or three additional silos the coming year," it is
practical proof that it is a success, and a profitable one. Farmers
are not apt to be very enthusiastic over their labors unless there are
some profits. I must say I have never seen so much enthusiasm
shown as expressed by those who have built silos for ensilage.
When a farmer says, " I have saved more money the past year than
I have for twenty years," it does seem as though the golden harvest
is to be reaped by the farmer ; and, for one, I think it is the farmer's
turn to meet with this success. Who can foretell the results when,
in less than five years, there will be thousands of silos in the United
States, whereas to-day there are about forty-three? Does it not
seem as though a new interest was awakening among our New-Eng-
land farmers? Has not the time arrived when our deserted farms
will all be wanted, and will be cultivated? Is there not a bonanza in
the farms with this new enterprise ? Will it not give the farmer such
profits, with less labor, as will enable him to be more independent?
Is it not going to create new interest with our sons when they can
find a more profitable employment, with less hard labor, than can be
found in any business in our cities? This enterprise will create a
new interest in farming : it will increase our stock in such large
numbers, our farms will be enriched, the soil more productive, crops
increased ; and with the great labor-saving, improved, agricultural
implements, instead of millions of New-England money going West
to purchase grain for our farmers, with our enriched farms, we
should raise all the grain we consume on the farm.
Again, with the increase in stock, the increase in productions of
beef, butter, cheese, wool, in quality, as well as quantity. With
these results, instead of our New-England towns decreasing in popu-
lation, they must double their numbers. These results can be ob-
tained by the farmer from this new enterprise, the preserving of our
green forage crops by ensilage.
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW
RENEWED BOOKS ARE SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE
RECALL
LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, DAVIS
Book Slip-20m-8,'61(C1623s4)458
2kl003
Stevens, H.R.
On ensilage of green
f^^^rr^ fr>r>r>fi in sllOS .
Call Number:
SB195
SB)35
575
241003