PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE WITH ENSILAGE. 81 



CHAPTER XX. 



PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE WITH ENSILAGE. 



ZPIROIFESSOIR, 



THE history of my first experiment with ensilage is as follows : 



M}* attention having been particularly drawn to the process by the 

 published accounts of the French experiments, and being convinced 

 of its great agricultural promise, I determined, soon after nry arrival 

 here last September, 1879, to test the matter experimentally for 

 myself. To follow the directions laid down by Goffart, was simply 

 out of the question : the expense would have been too great ; and the 

 experiment, even if successful, would have possessed but little prac- 

 tical value for the farmers of the South. Not one in a thousand 

 would be able to build silos costing hundreds of dollars, and to buy 

 cutters and engines footing up hundreds more. It has ever been my 

 declared aim to make my experiments as simple and practical as pos- 

 sible, such as would have immediate value for the agricultural 

 public, and such as could, with moderate care and outla}', be success- 

 fully undertaken by any intelligent farmer. My ensilage experiment 

 was, therefore, purposely of the very simplest description. 



A pit was prepared on the northern side of a small grove, and on 

 the edge of a dry knoll, nine feet long, six feet wide, and six feet 

 deep. The soil wis a strong, firm clay, over a close, dry, and com- 

 pact red clay subsoil. The sides of the pit were neither bricked up 

 nor cemented. Owing to the long-continued drought, the corn at the 

 time of cutting was dry and wilted. It was cut down when the ears 

 were beginning to fill, with sickles, about the middle of September, 

 and immediately carted to the pit after being weighed. It was care- 

 fully laid lengthwise in the pit, and closely packed, layer by la} T er. 



The mass was carried up vertically six feet above the surface of the 

 pit, in order to allow for its settling. About three feet of the clay 



