170 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



has been judiciously recommended. The ensihige contains, 

 without any particular exertion, the entire fodder-crop, 

 leaves and stems unimpaired. The quality and quantity 

 of the ensilage, in case of a carefully constructed cistern 

 and ordinary care in management, suffers mainly from but 

 one source, — fermentation. The waste of nutritious plant 

 constituents in the silo appears, probably, to most of us 

 large, even ruinous, because we have taken but little pains 

 to find numerical values for the depreciation in the feed- 

 ing value of our fodder-crops, which our current modes of 

 preserving fodder are liable to permit or to favor. 



Preferring actual results to mere approximations, and 

 ascribing, therefore, to the silo system a liiglier rate of un- 

 avoidable wagte of feeding value than to any other current 

 mode of preserving fodder, it ought to be remembered that 

 there are some redeeming features connected with the prod- 

 uct of the silo, — the ensilage, — for which it will be diffi- 

 cult to find one definite numerical value when comparing it 

 with the dry fodder of the same plant ; namely, the silo fer- 

 mentation increases the rate of digestibility of otherwise 

 indigestible constituents (cellular matter) of the green fod- 

 der, and thereby compensates somewhat for the waste of 

 valuable soluble organic matter ; and the ensilage of those 

 crops for which the silo system is judiciously recommended 

 is almost invariably more acceptable to all kinds of farm 

 live-stock than the dry fodder. 



When we add to the previous enumeration of exceptional 

 advantages arising from the introduction of the silo system 

 the one that it will tend to increase the production of one 

 of our most important fodder-plants, the corn, and that it 

 will enable us eventually to take care of important refuse 

 materials from various branches of agricultural chemical 

 industry, as sugar or starch manufacture, we can but desire 

 that its financial relation to our farm economy should 

 receive the most careful practical investigation. The silo 

 system is not a substitute for existing modes of preserving 

 fodder, but will prove a most valuable assistance to increase 

 our chances of securing larger quantities of good fodder. 



Mr. Ware (of Marblehead). The subject that has been 

 presented to us this morning is one that is of exceeding great 



