CHAPTER XXII 

 SILOS AND SILAGE 



321. Preserving summer feed for winter use. With the ex- 

 ception of ripened grain, all foodstuffs lose much of their dis- 

 tinctive flavor and value when dried. Hay is never so nutritious 

 as a feed as the green grass from which the hay is made. Even 

 the ancients sought to make June feed conditions in January 

 by preserving the green, succulent material in underground pits. 

 The early efforts to preserve green feed, however, were only 

 moderately successful, because the farmers in those days knew 

 nothing of bacteria and how to use them. We may now keep 

 feed green almost as easily as we preserve hay or dried feed. 

 The silo is the receptacle in which green feed is preserved, and 

 silage, formerly called ensilage, is the material preserved. 



322. Green and dried fodders compared. If the curing proc- 

 ess is carried on without the loss of leaves and the finer parts 

 of the plant and without any fermentation, the cured feed will 

 be practically as completely digested as it would have been if 

 fed green. But under ordinary farm conditions hay cannot be 

 made without a material loss of leaves and finer parts, and sel- 

 dom without fermentation. An experiment 1 showed that red 

 clover lost 18 per cent of its protein in the process of curing 

 under the best farm conditions, 23 per cent under fairly good 

 conditions, and more than 49 per cent when the weather was 

 bad. Moreover, green foods are much easier to masticate than 



1 Kellner, The Scientific Feeding of Animals, p. 122. 

 248 



