SILOS, ENSILAGE AND SILAGE. 31 



been used on an extensive scale, in the form of a mixture 

 of green food and chaffed hay or straw as early as 1855, 

 and that for several years previous to 1869 it had been 

 successfully preserved for winter feeding under essentially 

 the same conditions that are now prescribed in the prac- 

 tice of ensilage. 



We have, then, conclusive evidence that green fodder 

 had been successfully used for winter feeding, and the 

 practical principles involved in the process of preserving 

 it in silos had been demonstrated long before the system 

 was introduced into France (1870), where it received a 

 new nomenclature, and was brought to the attention of 

 farmers of other countries. 



In France the ensilage of fodder passed rapidly through 

 a series of experimental stages, which, although fully 

 recorded in the French agricultural papers of the day, 

 have been almost entirely ignored by American writers 

 who attempted to give an account of the origin and 

 history of the process. 



"In 1867, Count Roederer, a well-known agriculturist 

 and breeder of thorough-bred horses, living at Bois- 

 Roussel, in the Department of the Orne, began to pre- 

 serve green maize in silos for winter use by chopping it 

 and mixing it with cut straw and oat cavings, "* which 

 in effect was the method practiced by Mr. Jonas, in Eng- 

 land, at the same time, to which we have called attention, 

 the green maize in France taking the place of green rye 

 and tares in England, as a complementary adjunct of the 

 straw-chaff. 



The credit of priority in the ensilage of maize, which 

 gave rise to the present system of practice, must undoubt- 

 edly be awarded to Herr Adolph Reihlen, a sugar manu- 

 facturer and refiner, of Stuttgardt, who demonstrated the 

 economy of the process by the ensilage of beet leaves, beet 



* This practice was described in a letter of June 18th, 1870, published in the 

 " Journal d'agriculture progressive " the following week. See Jour. Roy. Agr'l 

 Soc., 1884, p. 136. 



