10 SILOS AND ENSILAGE. 



a familiarity with chemistry not possessed by the average 

 farmer and general reader. 



Every farmer knows that manure, another form of 

 vegetable matter, if allowed free access of air, will fer- 

 ment, heat, and decay. He also knows that manure, if 

 kept under cattle or sheep, and daily trodden down 

 through the winter, will come out in the spring quite 

 unchanged. These are familiar illustrations of the well- 

 known fact that the presence of air is necessary to decay, 

 and that the complete exclusion of air tends to the pres- 

 ervation of perishable substances. 



In the fodder corn we have a mass of succulent stems 

 and foliage in which preparation has been made for the 

 production of grain. These are filled with juices hold- 

 ing in solution the material that would soon be deposited 

 in the grain as starch, etc., but now largely in the form 

 of sugar. When the corn plant is cut and packed in 

 the silo, fermentation, the first step in decay, at once 

 begins. By thj action of the oxygen of the air on the 

 sugar and other contents of the stalks, etc., various 

 changes take place, one of which is to produce Carbonic 

 Acid. This acid is a gas, in which a candle can not burn 

 or any animal live, and in which no further fermentation 

 can occur. If the silo is air-tight, the very first steps in 

 the fermentation of its contents produce a gas that acts 

 as a preservative and prevents further change. The 

 more compact the fodder corn, the less air will there be 

 among it, and the sooner will the fermentation stop. 



The fermentation not only acts upon and changes the 

 composition of the air within the silo, but the fodder 

 itself is acted upon and changed. 



Sugar, when present in the juices of the corn, is at 

 first converted into alcohol ; and if fermentation contin- 

 ues far enough, acetic acid, or vinegar, will be formed 

 from the alcohol thus produced. 



If the silo is properly air-tight, and its contents cut 



