42 THE CATTLE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Since the first edition of this work, published in 1875, we 

 have had a new form of green food added to our resources, viz., 

 silage, which promises to be of great service, especially on 

 farms where tillage land is limited, where the nature of the 

 soil does not allow of the growth of roots, or when the climate 

 renders hay-making difficult. Although so recently introduced 

 into England, and hitherto principally in the hands of land- 

 lords or amateur farmers, the system of preserving fodder crops 

 by burying, and excluding the air, has been handed down from 

 ancient times. Over forty years ago the German practice of 

 making sour hay was described in the " Journal of the High- 

 land Agricultural Society." Professor Wrightson, reporting on 

 Austro-Hungary in 1874, noticed, as well worth attention, this 

 "sour hay;" and again, in 1875, he described the system in 

 the Times ; and another writer, Mr. T. Schwann, wrote on the 

 subject in the Field in 1870, and again in 1876 ; yet little notice 

 was taken of these communications, and it was not till the 

 value of silage had been tested in America, and written of in 

 very glowing terms, that the subject became thoroughly venti- 

 lated in this country, and was experimented on by many 

 leading agriculturists. Indeed, little had been done prior to 

 1882, when the Yiscount de Chezelles visited this country 

 and explained his operations. Credit must also be given to 

 M. G-offart, who not only was very successful himself, but 

 issued a manual, which was translated into English, and 

 attracted much attention in America. Numbers at once made 

 silos, and the result has been decidedly successful. At first it 

 was held to be indispensable that the fodder should be stored in 

 an air-tight chamber, and hence great expense was incurred in 

 building the receptacle called the silo, or in converting existing 

 buildings into silos. It was also considered desirable that the 

 material should at once be submitted to great pressure, so that 

 the fermentation which takes place, whilst it has the tendency 

 to break down and render the ingredients more soluble and 

 digestible than in the fresh material, should not degenerate into 

 the stage of acetic and alcoholic fermentation, but should be 

 arrested in what is known as the lactic acid stage of fermenta- 

 tion, and this may be considered as the perfect condition of 

 sour silage. But it has been pointed out that, as our fodder 



