20 SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 



" The opinions of practical agriculturists are derived in 

 general from their own experience, and from that of 

 their neighbors, in a limited district only. In distant 

 parts of the country, we know that these opinions are 

 often quite opposed to each other ; yet the phenomena 

 from which the cultivators of each province have deduced 

 their opposite opinions, are the natural results of the 

 same general laws. It is these laws which the philo- 

 sophical agriculturist seeks to discover. 



" The above observations apply, among other topics, to 

 the opinions held in different localities in regard to the 

 relative feeding properties of the natural and artificial 

 grasses in their green and dry states, their relative 

 value when made into hay after one or another method, 

 and when used at one or another season of the year. 

 * * * But it is also said, and I believe, as a gen- 

 eral principle, is also conceded, that the same weight 

 of the same grass will go further in the green state than 

 when it is made into hay. 



"But there appears to be a great, and so far as I am 

 capable of judging, a well-founded difference in regard 

 to the amount of nourishment lost by the act of drying. 

 By some it is stated to amount to one-half ; a ton of 

 green rye-grass or clover going as far as two tons when 

 made into hay. This proportion cannot be general ;, 

 but since differences so great may exist, according to the 

 eviderce of practical men, it becomes a matter of inter- 

 est to inquire how this difference arises, and if by any 

 means it can be avoided or diminished." 

 " When the soft young shoots of the dog-rose, the bram- 

 ble, or the hawthorn, or the stem of the young cab- 

 bage, are cut off and peeled, they are found to be soft 

 and eatable, and, like the heart, of the young turnip, 

 are readily digestible ; but let a month or two elapse, 

 and these shoots become woody and unfit for mastica- 

 tion, and, when taken into the stomach, pass through 



