256 THE CHEMISTRY OF CATTLE FEEDING 



The excess of acid can be neutralised by sprinkling precipitated 

 chalk over the fodder. 



When the expense of a built silo or the alternative loss 

 due to charring at the outside of a stack is added to the losses 

 due to fermentation, it is obvious that silage making is not a 

 profitable method of preserving fodder; it is now rarely 

 practised in this country. On the other hand, it is not so 

 laborious (expensive) as making hay, and the risk of loss by 

 bad weather is practically eliminated. These considerations 

 are of so much importance that silage-making is probably the 

 best method of preserving succulent fodders which, for any 

 reason, cannot be gathered until late autumn or in very wet 

 summers. It has also been urged that turnip tops, potato 

 haulm, maize stalks and all sorts of rubbish can be made into 

 silage. As, however, it has been shown that silage-making 

 does not improve, but markedly deteriorates the quality of 

 the original materials, and the substances mentioned are of 

 little or no value as foods to begin with, it does not appear 

 that any great advantage is derivable in that way. 



