110 H. E. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE. 



The boxes were at the side, equally distant from each end of the 

 pit, and driven by an eight-horse engine. The ensilage was kept 

 equally distributed over the floor, and six large farm-horses were 

 ridden over it from ten to twelve, and from five to seven o'clock, to 

 pack it. As the horses could not pack that against the walls, and at 

 the angles at the ends, that had to be trodden down by the men, when 

 the engine was stopped. 



We were fourteen days with fourteen men in filling the pit to within 

 three feet of the top. I then ran enough straw through the cutting- 

 box to cover the whole mass three inches deep ; then covered with 

 two-inch boards laid across the pit, and the boards with stone two 

 feet deep. 



On the 10th of January I opened the pit by taking off six feet of 

 stone and plank. When I saw the straw black and rotten, I feared 

 that the prophecy of my neighbors, "that I would have an immense 

 quantity of rotten fodder to haul out in the spring," had been fulfilled. 

 But, on getting to the fodder, I found only an inch deep a little 

 moulded, and all the rest, except in the angles of the building, and 

 against a part of the wall (from which the cement had fallen), in 

 perfect order. Eighty-two cattle are eating with great relish thirty- 

 seven pounds each day, and two hundred ewes one and a half pounds 

 each. 



I have now fed for three weeks, and have only used about one-sixth 

 of the ensilage. At this rate it will keep my cattle and sheep until 

 April 20, at which time I usually turn on grass. From a flock of 

 one hundred sheep t*t have been fed on ensilage since the pit was 

 opened, I have lost but one ; whilst from two hundred and fifty fed 

 on corn, straw, and fodder, I lost thirty in two weeks. These ewes 

 were heavy with lambs, and the change from grass to entirely dry 

 food caused constipation, and that, inflammation, which caused their 

 death. For the last week I have been feeding most of my sheep on 

 ensilage ; and, except some that were sick when I commenced, I have 

 lost none. 



The fifteen acres of ensilaged corn would have fed eighty cattle 

 one hundred and twenty-five clays, the usual length of our winter, 

 with the addition of one gallon of corn a day to each steer. If 

 fifty cubic feet make a ton, then I had two hundred and eighty-three 

 tons, which cost to cut, haul, and pack away, two hundred dollars, 

 less than one dollar a ton. 



