220 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



durable form. This was most remarkable progress for a 

 new system to make in a single season. Probably 8,000 

 tons of corn ensilage were preserved. The reports from 

 these various experiments were made to the agricultural 

 papers during the next six months, nearly all of them 

 favorable, many of them very enthusiastic, as to its econ- 

 omy and value. Some very extravagant estimates were 

 made as to the tons of corn raised upon an acre, but these 

 estimates were soon reduced to solid fact by the measure- 

 ment of the compressed contents of the crops in the silos. 

 Forty-six pounds were found to be the weight of a cubic foot 

 of ensilage after compression under 500 pounds to the square 

 yard, and the contents of the silo were easily measured, 

 and thus the yield per acre determined. The yields noted 

 ranged from 20 to 33 tons of green corn per acre. Thirty 

 tons may be considered an excellent yield of green corn. 

 This is equal to about five tons of water-free food, which 

 is nearly five times the average yield of dry food per acre 

 of our ordinary meadows. But it must be noted that the 

 dry food of corn ensilage is not as valuable per weight as 

 that from meadow grasses. 



An Ensilage Congress was held in New York in January, 

 1882, attended by a body of very intelligent men, and 

 reports were made from something like 100 different 

 experiments, and these reports were almost wholly favor- 

 able. It is true the experiments were few of them carried 

 out with as much accuracy as is desirable, but the general 

 tenor of them was strong evidence of the probable success 

 of the system. The Commissioner of Agriculture also took 

 the testimony of about one hundred persons who had built 

 and filled silos and fed the ensilage to the close of 1882, 

 and published it in a pamphlet of 71 pages ; and in this 

 the reports were nearly all favorable to the economy of the 

 system. The Commissioner says: " There is hardly a 

 doubt expressed on this point certainly not a dissenting 

 opinion." 



