22 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



The value of ensilage, as compared with the same fodder in a 

 green state, for stock food can only be fully determined bj' experi- 

 ment. An analysis alone is only an indicator of value, and to a 

 certain extent is valuable aid in determining the feeding value of a 

 product ; but its true value can only be ascertained by putting it to 

 the test of the organs of digestion and assimilation found in the 

 animal to which it is fed. Still, before accepting the testimony here 

 given, it may be well, although eutirel}' without that safe and reliable 

 guide, experience, to apply to this question — as we should to all 

 others of whatever nature — such reason and common sense as ma}' 

 be at command. Experince — admitted the best of all teachers in 

 these matters — proves what we learn through analvsis — that fodder- 

 corn is a weak food, and altogether unfit, alone, for stock food ; 

 that it 1)ecomes necessary to combine with it concentrated and 

 richer food of some kind in order to secure satisfactor}' results from 

 its use. Analysis proves the same — that is, that the ingi-edients of 

 a rich and valuable stock food are not contained in its contents. 

 Analysis may and does show the ingredients contained in a food 

 product, and what are not there. If the chemist cannot find cer- 

 tain ingi-edients from the fact that the}' do not exist there, then 

 when it is fed to the animal the organs of digestion cannot find 

 them. 



So, when this corn goes into the silo, it carries nothing with it 

 that it did not before contain ; and in this " softening down " noth- 

 ing is created. Therefore the conclusion is sound that the ensilage 

 contains nothing that the corn did not contain before it went in 

 there. Then, if there can be any increased feeding value to this 

 material, in this form, over the form it was in before the process of 

 ensilaging, it must come from material being made more digestible 

 by the change through which it passes. The low estimate placed 

 upon it, when fed in a green state, comes from there being an 

 excess of water, a low percentage of nutritive ingredients, and a 

 deficiency of albuminoid compounds. These defects cannot be cor- 

 rected by the process of ensilaging, and therefore must exist in the 

 ensilage. Determined, then, by whatever test it niay be submitted 

 to, there can be no improvement in food value of the material after 

 it goes into the silo. I cannot do better at this point than to quote 

 from that eminent authority, Samuel W. Johnson : 



" That the silo cannot create any fodder, or that we cannot take 

 out Of the silo any food element that we do not put in, is evident." 



