106 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



of corn, which has an unusually good stalk, and it is not at 

 all unlikely that the raw material is much better than the raw 

 material of ordinary corn fodder ; and if it is we should 

 expect that the ensilage would be better than ordinary 

 fodder. As to how it is that green corn fodder comes out of 

 the silo better than it went in — well, I don't know. I am 

 going to be just as frank as Mr. Hurd has been, and say that 

 I don't believe that it is. Mind you, I do not know, and I do 

 not believe that anybody knows, that it is better, although 

 many people believe that it is better. Now, when I say 1 be- 

 lieve it is no better, I mean, in nutritive value ; and when I 

 say " nutritive value," I mean that there is no more food in 

 the ensilage when it comes out than there was in the corn 

 when it went in. I do not believe that it is any more digest- 

 ible when it comes out than when it went in. I do not be- 

 lieve that the quality of it is in any sense better when it comes 

 out than when it went in. I know there is less of it when it 

 comes out than when it went in. 



Now, there is one thing which you must consider: it comes 

 out very palatable, and that makes a great deal of difference. 

 I think I could select a couple of ladies who would take the 

 same meat, and the same flour, and the same butter, and the 

 same apples, and go to work and make mince pies, and the 

 pies made by one of them would be very nice and the other's 

 would not be fit to eat. The same nutriment would he in 

 both, but the feeding effect would be different. You miglit 

 have all my share of one of them. And in respect to en- 

 silage, that is one of its advantages, that it gives us a very 

 palatable food ; it has a flavor about it which is agreeable to 

 cattle, they eat it with more relish, and that is a very impoi-t- 

 ant thing. Mr. Hurd has told us he believes it to be more 

 digestible, and he has given us some facts which justify him 

 in this conclusion. I do not gainsay his facts ; they may be 

 coi-rect. A great many trials have been made in Germany 

 upon the digestibility of food, in the only way which we can 

 reasonably adopt of testing that question ; that is, by feeding 

 the food for a period of time to a number of animals, and 

 determining whether they increase in live weight and in dead 



