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stated bj writers on ensilage that two horses in a tread power will 

 cut four tons of fodder per hour, into three-fourths inch length. 

 I think this statement misleading, though of course diHerent ma- 

 chines will give different results. Our farm teams have worked 

 for many years past in a tread power, sawing about two hundred 

 cords of wood each fall, with a buzz saw. We found this power 

 insufficient to run the cutter at a good speed. We were, in fact, 

 obliged to stop work, close up the silo and procure a sweep power, 

 such as is used for running threshing machines, to enable us to 

 prosecute the work with any rapidity. Four horses, with such a 

 power, will do the work in proper manner. When doing the best 

 work, with knives sharp and everything in order, we cut 120 

 pounds of three-fourths inch ensilage per minute, from actual tests. 



We are using the same sweep power this winter for sawing 

 wood that was used for the ensilage, and I judge from the way 

 the teams draw, that it requires as much power to saw one cord 

 of dry, four-foot maple wood into three lengths as it does to cut 

 three tons of fodder corn into three-fourths inch ensilage. By 

 using the threshing machine horse power, the farmer is in con- 

 dition to crowd the work, which if it drags is most annoying and 

 expensive. It requires about as many hands as for threshing 

 grain and is as hard work in every way. 



The ensilage, as fast as it passed from the cutter into the silo, 

 was spread and tramped down, but no material of any kind, as 

 salt or lime, was used to preserve it. While filling the silo we 

 had many visitors, as notices were placed in the city papers and 

 several hundred postal cards were sent inviting prominent farmers 

 from different parts of the state to witness our work. The com- 

 ments were as varied almost as the visitors. As the weather was 

 very warm the ensilage heated rapidly, and when the visitor would 

 run his hand down into the mas? of damp-cut fodder and find it 

 so hot as to be uncomfortable, there would sometimes come a 

 shake of the head and prediction of failure of some sort, "It 

 will burn the barn up ;" " May keep below but will not on top ;" 

 *' Think it will be all right above where it can get some air, but 

 below it will make a nice manure heap." 



After putting in the fodder from the three plots enumerated, to- ' 



