TRANSFORMATION DURING SILOING. 161 



fact, very often when the factory method of washing does not 

 allow the construction of any special silos, and when the farmers 

 refuse to undertake it, the product is simply thrown in piles and 

 left exposed to the air. Under these conditions it becomes evi- 

 dent that the factories must lose, or in other words make a sac- 

 rifice, which under better management would have been unnec- 

 essary, of a product that enters very materially into the financial 

 profits of the season, when the entire bulk of the sugar campaign 

 is considered. 



This organic transformation, or putrefaction, even during 

 siloing, may represent a sacrifice of 30 to 50 centimetres in 

 depth, meaning a considerable proportion of the total product. 

 It becomes evident that the essentials for the proper preservation 

 of these cossettes consist in keeping out the air and rain. This 

 distinctive action of rain and air increases with the period of 

 keeping, for the reason that the cells of the residuum thus 

 stored become, with time, more and more open. The rain enter- 

 ing carries away a large percentage of the nourishing elements. 



Do what one may, there always follow numerous transforma- 

 tions in the silos; there arises a fermentation in the mass of 

 all, or nearly all, of the organic substances, such as the 

 non-nitrogenous, which are partly converted into lactic acid. 

 Under these circumstances the cossettes are possessed of a de- 

 cidedly acid reaction and may contain, according to Morgen, 

 more than 4.7 per cent, of their dry substances as organic acid, 

 calculated upon a basis of lactic acid. This apparently ab- 

 normal quantity has very much less influence on the digestion 

 of animals than one might be led to suppose. They give, on 

 the contrary, a rather agreeable characteristic sour taste, to which 

 cattle soon become accustomed, and furthermore they appear to 

 eat the product with great avidity. 



But, it is to be noticed, that in order that the cossettes may 

 undergo this lactic fermentation to the best advantage, they 

 should reach a temperature of very nearly 40 C. [104 F.], 

 without any supplementary heat other than that found in the 

 siloed mass, otherwise there would follow r an objectionable acid 

 fermentation, under which circumstances, instead of lactic acid, 

 there would be found a micro-organism known as mycoderma 

 11 



