4O THE BOOK OF ENSILAGE. 



We re-shock or stack the corn-fodder. If we hope 

 or expect to induce our cattle to eat much of the 

 stover, we must cut it with a powerful cutter ; next the 

 corn must be ground, and carefully mixed with the cut 

 corn-fodder. Then it must be steamed ; and after all this 

 labor and expense the stock will nose it about in their 

 mangers, and leave enough of it to keep themselves well 

 bedded. Now what do we accomplish by all this shuck- 

 ing, cribbing, grinding, cutting of the fodder, mixing 

 and steaming? Why, we have been getting up a very 

 poor quality of " Ensilage " ! 



After the stalks and leaves had become almost worth- 

 less by exposure to the rains and dews while the ripen- 

 ing of the ears was being accomplished, we then, by 

 an expensive, laborious, and roundabout way, try with all 

 the appliances of steam and machinery to get the corn 

 back into the stalks so that we can induce our cattle to 

 eat them. 



Why not take and preserve the plant when its nutritive 

 value is the greatest ? when all its valuable elements are 

 mixed and blended in an harmonious whole exactly 

 adapted for the healthy sustenance of our domestic ani- 

 mals, by that Master Chemist whose handiwork as seen 

 in the tiniest leaf is so far in advance of our most skilful 

 combinations that we can never even hope to comprehend 

 how it was formed from the original elements. 



It will be almost unnecessary to state that this system 

 of preserving corn-fodder is equally well adapted to all 

 the grasses, clover, Hungarian grass, millet, pea and 

 bean vines, and, in fact, to all kinds of forage-crops, par- 

 ticularly heavy crops of aftermath, which it is often im- 

 possible to cure by drying, owing to the lateness of the 

 season, the sun by the obliquity of its rays having lost 

 much of its potency. 



