17 



generally run down to the bottom, we deem it a good plan 

 to cover the bottom of the silo to the depth of a foot with 

 chaff or some other absorbing food, which can be used 

 afterwards, and so a loss is prevented. If a silo is filled 

 all at one time with green stuff, after a few days it will be 

 found to have sunk down to about half its former height. It 

 m.-iv be found more convenient to fill in so much at certain 

 intervals. Those intervals should never he so long as to 

 allow the top of the last layer to become mouldy. If two 

 to four feet of stuff is added and well packed down either 

 hv boys, roller, or even by lowering down and walking about 

 a horse, and a day or two allowed to intervene before next 

 filling, a good silage will result. Special care should be 

 paid to the packing round the sides, else the outside edges 

 are liable to be spoilt. Much experience and judgment are 

 necessary to be able to heap up the fodder the right distance 

 above the silo, so that when the shrinking has ceased the 

 pit will be exactly full. The top should be protected by a 

 layer six to twelve inches thick of rough material, as weeds, 

 straw, etc. Sufficient planks, cut two inches shorter than 

 breadth of silo, to cover the silo, but leaving an inch 

 between each plant for ventilation, should be placed on the 

 top and weights put on the top of them. If the pit 

 has been gradually filled and curel'iilly packed, it will 

 require less weighting. Stones, bags of earth, loose earth 

 or anything handy may be used, but a small hole should be 

 left in the centre for the purpose of taking the temperature. 

 We should have mentioned before that in filling a deep 

 silo there is some little danger attached to entering, for, 

 during heating, quantities of carbonic acid gas a poison 

 is given off. It has been found that the resulting silage 

 i- not always of the same nature, even although the material 

 used was the same and harvested and filled in the same 

 condition. Sometimes the bottom layers differ from the 

 upper. It may be a brownish substance with a peculiar 

 sweetish smell, to which stock are very partial, or it may be 

 a yellowdsh green substance with a sharp odour, of which 

 stock are also fond. The former is known as "sweet silage," 

 and is very useful for fattening stock ; the latter is specially 

 serviceable in increasing the flow of milk when fed to dairy 

 stock. The difference between the two sorts is due to the 

 fact that two different kinds of fermentations have taken 

 place. The nature of both fermentation* is know r n, and 

 either can be induced or controlled at will. 



If after rapid filling the silo is weighted down and a large 

 portion of the air in the interstices driven out, the spon- 

 taneous heating is unlikely to result in a higher tempera- 

 ture than 35 degrees centigrade = = 95 degrees F., and 

 butyric and lactic bacteria, as well as a number of highly 

 divergent fermentative organisms are active. After a time 



