32 SILOS AKD ENSILAGE. 



equal to about sixty pounds of fresh green fodder. The 

 fodder was eaten with great relish, and only some por- 

 tions of the harder stalks were left. The second pit was 

 consumed July 3d, having been preserved equally well 

 with the first. The third was not opened until the 20th 

 of April, 1874, eighteen months after covering. The 

 fodder was in as good order as that from the other pits, 

 excepting that the discolored and decayed layer was 

 somewhat thicker in this pit than in the others ; a result 

 attributed in a great . degree to the gravelly and porous 

 character of the covering earth, the preservation being 

 due solely to the exclusion of air. In this instance the 

 fodder was preserved whole, and the cost of cutting 

 avoided. But when the fodder has to be cut for final 

 use, it has been found an economy to cut it before it is 

 stored. This system has been adopted by M. Piret, the 

 manager of a large estate owned by M. A. Houette, at 

 Bleneau, in Belgium. From his statement we find that 

 he made a small experiment in 1868 which was perfectly 

 successful, the cut fodder being withdrawn from the pit 

 in 1869 in excellent condition. In 1870 two pits of 

 masonry were erected above ground, protected at the 

 sides only by banks of earth. They were found equally 

 serviceable with those sunk below the surface, and much 

 more convenient. Following the statement of this gen- 

 tleman closely, we learn that by the aid of about four 

 hundred and fifty pounds of superphosphate of lime per 

 acre, he has obtained, on fairly good soil, seventy-five 

 tons per acre of green fodder, although the average of 

 his crop was not more than forty-five tons per acre ; two 

 hundred and fifty tons of this was cut by a fodder cutter 

 driven by horse-power, cutting two tons per hour, and 

 stored in the pits as follows. The pit was built as shown 

 in figure 9, which represents the section, a dividing 

 wall in the center separating it into two parts. The cut 

 fodder, falling into the pit, was carried in baskets upon 



