412 



ENSILAGE. 



of poor hay, and that fine clover hay has twice the value of 

 poor clover hay. 



No. III. — Analysis of Hay. 



Good hay is made into bad hay by the washing aw^ay of 

 soluble constituents and by fermentation. The albumen, carbo- 

 hydrates, and fat all become less and less, and the propor- 

 tion of woody fibre becomes greater. But, even when hay is well 

 made, it must not be supposed that it is kept without change. 

 The organisms at work in the silo are also in the hay, and they 

 are consuming the fodder none the less surely, though the work 

 is slow, and unaccompanied by the great rise of temperature and 

 exhalation of pungent gas, which attracts attention in the making 

 of ensilage. There is no doubt that well-made ensilage, as at 

 present produced, is far superior to ill-secured hay, but w^hether it 

 is as good as the best hay is a matter which must be decided by 

 feeding experiments. If the ensilage were of the perfect kind 

 already referred to, or somewhat approaching it, it would be 

 superior to even the best hay. 



The ensilage made at the silos at Portmore was good, but it 

 was far from perfect, and it w^as put in in layers of various 

 crops, more to test roughly the practicability of the process at all 

 than to establish any accurate comparison between the feeding 

 properties of hay and ensilage. The drippings from one kind of 

 crop flowed down and mixed with the others below it, so as to 

 destroy their individuality, and the analyses given in Table 

 II. cannot be taken as affording more than a rough estimate 

 of the value of the various kinds of ensilage. 



The most surprising result in that table is the high value of 

 plantation grass, which has the second highest amount of 

 albumen, althoudi classed with hisjhlv nitrocjenous fodders, like 

 vetches and clover. There is no doubt that some of this was 



