SILO AND ENSILAGE. 385 



ure to the air, a molecular action sets in, which converts the 

 starch and sugar of the plant into lactic acid. The oxygen 

 of the air does not enter into this action, and the chemical 

 constituents of the substance remain as before, the same 

 quantities of the same elements, but in different combination. 

 But this change does affect the feeding value of the substance 

 to a considerable degree, so that in putting ensilage into the 

 silo under the best conditions that the farmer can provide, a 

 loss of feeding value of from twenty to twenty-five per cent, 

 must inevitably occur. Under less favorable conditions, as 

 when the air is less fully expelled from the ensihige, alcoholic 

 fermentation takes place, from which, as further oxidation 

 goes on, acetic acid is produced. Then at least fifty per cent, 

 of the feeding value is lost. 



Chemists, however, admit that possibly the formation of 

 lactic acid to a certain amount in the ensilage, may, in the 

 absence of air, act as an antiseptic, and thus check further 

 decomposition ; and also, that this acid, being a normal 

 constituent of the contents of some of the digestive organs 

 of animals, may render the ensilage more fully digestible, 

 and thereby increase its value to some undetermined extent. 



It does thus appear that the chemistry of ensihige is 

 certainly very much against this method of preserving 

 green forage. Chemists, and most of those persons who 

 have had no experience in feeding ensilage, are opposed to 

 this system as being costly and wasteful. But hundreds of 

 careful, observing farmers who have had from one to five 

 years' experience in its use, to a man, pronounce it the most 

 economical and profitable method of preserving and feeding 

 green crops to all farm live-stock, and especially for dairy 

 products and growing animals. 



This wide difference of opinion may be, perhaps, reason- 

 ably accounted for by the fact that the chemist deals, in his 

 laboratory, entirely with dead matter, while the farmer 

 deals with life in the food and life of animals. The chem- 

 istry of life and the chemistry of death may differ as much 

 as the difference in opinion that exists between the chemist 

 and the farmer upon this subject. For instance, to the 

 farmer, fresh June grass appears to be a complete food for 

 farm live-stock, producing the greatest growth in young stock, 



