112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



effect may he, the ensilage, in a perfectly tight silo, will scarcely 

 be more altered from its normal condition than the cud of a cow 

 from the grass it was made of. The point is to make the silo 

 tight. Failing in this, changes detrimental to quality and waste 

 have been the rule. But recently improvements in the construc- 

 tion have been very great, and loss and injury have correspond- 

 ingly diminished. A perfect exclusion of air is the end to be 

 aimed at. 



Prof. Johnson. I would like to ask Mr. Hurd if the corn 

 fed as fodder and the ensilage were of the same kind of corn 

 and would compare closely together as to the time of cutting 

 and all that ? 



Mr. Hurd. We have always raised a large-growing variety 

 of corn for soiling purposes. We have never until we began 

 ensihaging used Blount's prolific. I do not think there can be 

 forty per cent, difference in tlie variety of corn, and I credit 

 it to ensilage. 



Prof. Johnson. We should consider this an open question. 

 Of course it is hardly conceivable that Blount's prolific should 

 be forty per cent, better than other corn, and yet there are 

 great differences in corn. It is possible, too, that there are 

 other differences in tlie two experiments which would in- 

 fluence the result. If I had only such testimony as Mr. 

 Hurd has given, I should say at once that it goes very far to 

 show that tlie ensilage is improved in digestibility ; but we 

 have had some comparative trials made with ensilage and 

 with hay, straw, roots, and other feed, and those experiments 

 as I understand th'em have failed to show such improvement 

 in digestibility. It may be true that in this case there was a 

 difference ; in the cases to which I refer, there was, to my 

 mind, evidently no such difference. I have had no practical 

 experience myself with ensilage, but at my left hand is a 

 gentleman who believes (and I think he is correct) that he 

 made the first silo in America — Dr. Miles, formerly profes- 

 sor of agriculture in the Michigan and Illinois Agricultural 

 Colleges, and now director of experiments at Mr. Houghton's 

 farm at Mountainville, New York, where investigations have 

 been begun, wliich, if they can be carried on for forty years, 



