REPORT OF CLARK W. MILLS. 59 



packed in silos, under pressure so tightly as to exclude the air. Mr. 

 Mills estimates the entire cost of his supply of about six hundred 

 tons, including seed, tillage, gathering, cutting and packing ready for 

 feeding, at less than five hundred dollars ; and when it is remembered 

 that a sufficient amount of hay to answer the same purpose would 

 have cost something like seventy-five hundred dollars, the value of 

 the new process will be recognized. 



Yesterday a number of gentlemen from various parts of New Jer- 

 sey visited Arrareek Farm to make a personal inspection of the 

 method of preparing the ensilage, and its results. In the party 

 were the Hon. James Bishop, chief of the State Bureau of Statis- 

 tics ; Professor George H. Cook, of the Agricultural College, and 

 State Geologist ; Theodore West, superintendent, and A. T. Neale, 

 chemist of the State Experimental Farm, besides several prominent 

 stock-raisers, like Messrs. Holly and Ahrens of Plainfield ; Nelson 

 of New Brunswick ; Ridgeway, Hutchinson, and Taylor of Burling- 

 ton County. In the barn, which is eighty feet long, there was not a 

 wisp of hay, but two pits, each forty feet long, thirteen feet wide, 

 and twenty feet deep, with strictly perpendicular walls of concrete. 

 One silo had been emptied ; and from the other a section of the cover 

 had been removed, and the ensilage cut out to the bottom, having a 

 perpendicular wall for inspection. 



Mr. Mills has found, by experiment, that the freshly-cut maize can 

 be compressed in volume nearly one-half ; and therefore he places a 

 frame of plank fifteen feet high, and of the same width and length 

 of the silo, upon the concrete wall, and fills the space to the top of the 

 wocden feeder. Upon the mass a cover of plank is placed, loaded 

 with heavy weights ; and in a few days the cover will have pressed the 

 mass below the mouth of the pit, on a level with the floor when the 

 frame is removed. The cover is of two-inch plank, made in sections 

 of four feet in width ploughed and grooved, firmly battened, with the 

 battens of each section projecting, and fitting into those of the next 

 one, so that, under equally distributed weight, the whole moves down- 

 ward together. The sections are an inch shorter than the width of 

 the pit, leaving a space for air and gases to escape as the cover is 

 pressed downward. The weight used is about fifty tons of grain in 

 sacks, which is ground for feed as it is taken from each section. 



The ensilage yesterday inspected was perfectly preserved, from the 

 top layer to the bottom. When cut from the solid mass it is of a 

 brownish-green color, and the juices have a slightly acid taste. It 



