88 THE dairyman's MANUAL. 



other fodder, the abundant sweet potato and the cheap 

 cotton seed meal make the very best substitute for the 

 Northern roots and grain feed. Butter can be made in 

 the South for ten cents a pound, more easily tbau it can 

 be for twenty cents in the North; and the markets there 

 are far better, and better prices can be obtained than in any 

 part of the North, excepting in some of the largest cities. 

 Of this fact the author can speak from a few years' per- 

 sonal experience in the Southern States upon his North 

 Carolina farm, as well as from several years spent in the 

 dairy business in two Northern States. 



CHAPTER YIII. 

 ENSILAGE OF FODDER. 



About sixteen or seventeen years ago the author, then 

 one of the editors of the American Agriculturist, wrote 

 the first description of a silo for the preservation of green 

 fodder printed in America, in an article published in 

 that paper, the pioneer agricultural journal of America. 

 In that article was given a description of the then very 

 imperfect process of making '^sour hay" from corn 

 stalks which were buried in pits in the ground and 

 covered with the earth taken out. Several years pre- 

 viously (in 1855), the author, then traveling in Europe, 

 saw at the agricultural school at Grignon, and at a large 

 farm attached to a sugar beet factory, a number of silos 

 of the same rough and ready character, in which clover, 

 lucern, and the leaves of the beet were preserved. 



This practice had descended from the ancient Romans, 

 who, on their peaceful Italian farms, thus stored their 

 fodder for use in the winter season, and who, as was 

 their wont, changing the plow and the hoe for the sword 

 and the spear, spread over Europe a conquering host of 



