114 PERMANENT AND TEMPOEARY PASTURES. 



ammonia, wliicli is useless as animal food. It is by no means 

 evident tliat these losses are not greater than when hay is even 

 badly weathered. Apparently the cost of labour in making 

 ensilage is not generally higher than the cost of haymaking 

 in (ordinary weather, and is decidedly less than the outlay for 

 haymaking in bad weather. In wet seasons, too, the hay is not 

 only more costly to make, but, wdien made, is of low^ feeding 

 quality, so that ensilage in such years may not only be cheaper 

 but superior. 



Tliose who have tried ensilage as food for dairy cows are 

 practically unanimo- s in its favour, although recent losses of 

 valuable animals show that there is danger in feeding with it 

 alone. In fattening bullocks, however, the Eothamstead experi- 

 ments prove that for putting on flesh swedes and mangels have 

 a considerable advantage over grass or clover ensilage, whether 

 sweet or sour. 



To my mind all the facts which have been disclosed to the 

 present time point in the direction of making ensilage entirely 

 subordinate to haymaking. I do not for a moment believe that 

 when a farmer can turn his grass into hay in three genial days 

 he will consent to cart nearly four times the w^eight of freshly- 

 cut grass to the silo. The haystack, properly made, takes care 

 of itself, but the full silo involves weeks of anxious waiting and 

 watching, with the risk of failure in the end. And when wet 

 seasons make the silo a valuable adjunct to a farm, I think that 

 the aim should be to preserve the ensiled grass wdth as little fer- 

 mentation as possible, instead of attempting to manufacture a 

 new product out of the green material. 



The fact that silage has been made in silage stacks, and also 

 in old petroleum casks, shows that costly permanent buildings 

 are not necessary for the majority of farmers, however reason- 

 able they may be on large estates where the owners take a 

 pleasure in making experiments which they hope may prove 

 beneficial to the whole agricultural community. But on most 

 homesteads there might probably with advantage be a portable 



