46 



SILOS, EKSILAGE A^D SILAGE. 



"In up wards of fifty chambers thus constructed, many 

 of them used more than once, it was, without exception, 

 proved that a sterilized infusion in contact with air 

 shown to be self-cleansed by the luminous beam, re- 

 mained sterile. Never, in a single unexplained instance, 

 did such an infusion show any signs of life. That the 

 observed sterility was not due to any lack of nutritive 

 power in the infusion was proved by opening the back 

 door and permitting the unclean sed air to enter the 

 chamber. The contact of the floating matter with the 

 infusions was invariably followed 

 by the development of life."* 



The organisms which cause pu- 

 trefaction were as readily removed 

 from the air by the simple process 

 of subsidence, as by nitration 

 through cotton, or by passing 

 through a red-hot tube, or through 

 sulphuric acid. Pasteur practiced 

 a still different method, that en- 

 abled him to separate the differ- 

 ent organisms concerned in fer- 

 mentation and putrefaction, and 

 cultivate them as "pure breeds" 

 for many generations, and thus FIG 



determine the Specific physiologi- tone of Pasteur's culture flasks, 



cal action of each species. ^^1^^^ 



By means of small glass flasks of different forms, to 

 isolate the different ferments, he proved that each spe- 

 cies produced a particular form of fermentation, as the 

 alcoholic, the lactic, the butyric, the acetic and the 

 putrefactive, and this, he claimed, was the result of 

 their vital activities in the processes of nutrition. 



Like all living beings, the micro-organisms of fer- 



* Tyndall, 1. c. p. 133. 



t " Studies on Fermentation," p. 241. Macmillan & Co., N. Y. 



