GREEN FOOD IN SILOS. IGl 



buried in the contents of a silo of tlie previously described 

 construction. The silo was opened about two months after- 

 wards for feeding purposes. The box also was opened on 

 that date, and its contents carefully dried and analyzed. 



DRIED E9PARSETTE. DRIED ESPAKSETTE ENSILAGE. 



Per cent. Per cent. 



A careful weighing of the green food in the box, before 

 and after the treatment in the silo, showed that twenty-four 

 per cent of the organic dry matter of the fresh green plant 

 had been destroyed by fermentation. 



Grass, green lucern, and green lujnne have been treated 

 in silos with similar results. Quite interesting, in this con- 

 nection, are the experiments with a mixture of green food 

 and straw, to study the changes of the latter, as far as its 

 subsequent feeding quality is concerned. Green rye and 

 green vetch, with straw of wheat and of oats, were chosen 

 for the investigation. As these two kinds of straw may be 

 cut somewhat before the full ripening of the grains, without 

 any injury to the latter, — a course which cannot be safely 

 followed in the case of barley, etc., — they disintegrate, com- 

 paratively speaking, quite readily, and thus become in a 

 higher degree digestible when treated in silos with green 

 food. Rye and vetch were taken just before blooming. One 

 part of either one of the two green plants, and twenty parts 

 of wheat-straw, were cut in a suitable machine into pieces of 

 about one to two inches in length : for every hundred pounds 

 of straw there was added from a pound to a pound and a 

 half of salt. The green food and the straw were placed 

 in alternate layers in the silo, and, after being trampled down, 

 were covered in the usual manner with several feet in thick- 

 ness of earth. The silos, in this case, were filled in summer, 

 and opened as late as October, and their contents fed during 

 the winter. The somewhat extended period of keeping 

 them fermenting before feeding insured a proper softening 

 and disintegrating of the straw, and therefore a higher 



