FARM DEPARTMENT. 241 



filled slowly and its contents allowed to heat up from 120° to 130° 

 Fahrenheit, the bacteria or germs that cause fermentation would be 

 destroyed and we should have what is termed sweet ensilage, it being 

 claimed that the rapid filling tended to produce more acid, resulting in sour 

 ensilage. This theory of producing sweet ensilage by slow filling has been 

 quite generally accepted and practiced for two or three years past. 



I am of the opinion, however, that positive evidence to sustain this theory 

 is almost if not entirely wanting. Enough careful work has not been done 

 to demonstrate it beyond question. A large number of careful and experi- 

 enced men claim that rapid filling makes good enough ensilage, and is much 

 more economical so far as labor is concerned. 



At an institute in Pennsylvania last winter two specimens of ensilage were 

 brought in for inspection. One sample was much sweeter and of better 

 quality than the other. This sample, it was afterward learned, had been 

 made in a silo filled rapidly, while the other was the result of slow filling 

 and heating to the degree of temperature claimed to kill the bacteria. The 

 corn was alike and the conditions the same so far as I could learn, except in 

 this one particular of the slow and rapid filling. 



May it not be that the reason for our having better ensilage in recent years 

 is to be attributed to the fact that we have been putting in our corn when 

 more nearly matured than formerly? Certainly there should be some careful 

 experiments made to determine whether the theory is correct or not. 



On this point Prof. H. E. Alvord, President of the Maryland Agricultural 

 College, whose long experience and varied experiments with ensilage make 

 him one of our best authorities, says : "From its first introduction the chief 

 fault found with ensilage has been the acid character of the material at the 

 time it is fed to animals. This acidity results from fermentation in the silo, 

 caused by living organisms, known as bacteria. Enthusiastic friends of this 

 process of preserving forage claimed, a few years ago, that they had dis- 

 covered a method of making sweet ensilage. 



"The theory upon which this method is based is that the bacteria of the 

 ensilage fermentation are destroyed and the fermentation thus arrested by a 

 certain degree of temperature, placed variously at 120° to 140° F. The little 

 creatures are induced, as it were, by favorable conditions, to work themselves 

 into such a state of excitement as to die of apoplexy from their own fervent 

 heat. It is a very pretty theory, or was, as long as it lasted, but that was not 

 long. As well try to fan a fire to such intensity that it would extinguish 

 itself and without injury to the fuel. Careful students soon discovered that 

 the bacteria of the silo were particularly happy and active at the very tem- 

 peratures which it was claimed would destroy them. Temperatures 120° to 

 160° F. are most favorable to their development and activity, and it requires 

 at least 185° to destroy them, while fermenting ensilage does not often exceed 

 140°, and no authentic record, of 150° F. can be found. How men could so 

 deceive themselves — and some of scientific reputation have been among them — 

 it is hard to understand ; but the evidence is conclusive that they were wrong. 

 I have never yet been so fortunate as to see any ensilage which I could call 

 ' sweet.' Of course, the material differs greatly in the degree of its apparent 

 acidity, and as comparative terms, sour and sweet may be convenient as 

 applied to ensilage, although deceptive. I see no evidence that any relation, 

 exists between the method of filling the silo — the slow process or the quick 

 process — and the acidity of the product. On the whole, I prefer the straight 



31 



