GREEN FOOD IN SILOS. 183 



whether it has turned green, or gray, or dark-colored. We 

 want the facts in the matter, so that we may know wliether 

 we can get the benefits of this system without too much ex- 

 pense. Here is a chance, I conceive, to try the experiment. 

 He has tried it on a cheap scale, and we can all try it in a 

 similar manner. 



Dr. Faxon. I wish to say that there is one thing which 

 might make this cheap process of preserving fodder of value. 

 It is very easy for us to buy oil-cake, or any nitrogenous 

 commercial article ; but if we can raise forty, fifty, or sixty 

 tons of corn-fodder on an acre, and by that means keep four 

 or five cows in the barn, and put the manure on the ground, 

 it will enable us to use a good many acres that are of no 

 value now. That is the point we are after. I will not take 

 issue with the professor on the loss ; but the question is, How 

 much shall we gain? If we have land that does not bring- 

 in net five dollars an acre, if we can make it yield fifty 

 dollars an acre, there is so much gained. That is the only 

 practical point there is about it. It enables us to save fodder 

 that we could not save in any other way. 



Mr. Johnson (of Framingham). I suppose the matter 

 of dollars and cents is to come into this silo question, and 

 therefore I venture to speak of the cost of preserving field- 

 corn. To take sixty tons of green corn and cut it up into 

 pieces an inch long, and put it into silos, is very expensive. 

 I think Dr. Faxon has demonstrated thoroughly that corn 

 can be kept in the inexpensive way he has described. Now 

 I wish to state, that in 1866 or 1867 I packed a bay of hay 

 that was not in the field over an hour from the time the 

 scythe dropped it. The timothy was not in full blossom 

 when it was cut. I packed it so that it was all laid even and 

 straight through the mow, and kept it as nearly air-tight as 

 possible. The barn had no cellar. The hay was packed close 

 to the ground, with plank underneath. That hay was thor- 

 oughly preserved. It had a fine brown shade, and was the 

 sweetest and best hay for milch cows that I ever fed. I 

 could not put in my hay where there is a cellar underneath 

 in that way. That hay was, as I have said, thoroughly pre- 

 served, except about a foot in depth, which could not be 

 kept as tight as the rest of the hay in the mow. I am confi- 

 dent that the gentleman's theory is correct, and his experi- 



