59 



stances. The loss has, in only a few cases been but 

 little more than in the hay-stack, and is generally very 

 much more. There has always been a considerable, and 

 sometimes a very considerable, loss of total nitrogen ; and 

 there is, besides, a considerable amount of degradation 

 from the albuminoid condition to compounds of lower, if 

 of any, food-value. Nor do the results afford any evidence 

 that " woody-fibre " of a given degree of induration is 

 rendered more soluble, and consequently more digestible. 



Experiments have also been made, to determine the 

 value as food, of different descriptions of silage, compared 

 with that of other ordinary food-stuffs. Thus, trials 

 have been made with red clover silage against a mix- 

 ture of red clover hay and Swedish turnips in each 

 case given, with fixed amounts of other foods, to fatten- 

 ing oxen; with red clover and meadow-grass silage, 

 against mangels, each given, with fixed amounts of other 

 foods, to milking cows ; with silaged green oats against 

 ripened oats (grain and straw), given, with other foods, 

 to fattening oxen; and with meadow-grass silage 

 against corresponding meadow-grass hay, given, with 

 other foods, to fattening oxen. 



So far as it is possible to state the result of the feed- 

 ing experiments in a few words, it may be said that 

 silage, properly made, of good materials, is undoubtedly 

 a good food. But how far it is economical must largely 

 depend on at what cost of loss it has been produced ; for, 

 so far as can be judged from the results obtained 

 hitherto, its value, compared with that of fairly com- 

 parable foods, depends, at any rate for fattening animals, 

 on the amount of digestible dry substance which it 

 supplies ; and, as has been stated, the amount of this 

 which is lost in its production is very variable, and 

 much has still to be learnt as to the conditions under 

 which more or less is so lost; whilst it would seem 

 that, of the constituents which remain, the digestibility 

 and assimilability of the non-nitrogenous are not in- 

 creased, and those of the nitrogenous are reduced. 

 For milking cows also, silage, given in limited quan- 

 tity, is a good food. But, independently of the amounts 



