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eaten, and the convenience of some preparation and regulation 

 must have been soon recognized. The Hebrews chopped or 

 cut both straw and grain in the bundle for feed, and so did the 

 old Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. Their implements, of 

 course, were rude, but nevertheless the labors of slaves, who 

 required little clothing, and who received only the coarsest fare, 

 was cheap. Silos could not be practicable with us until improved 

 implements and scientific adaptation of means to the end could 

 be brought into play. This is precisely what M. August GofF- 

 art of France did, and hence, he may truly be called the father 

 of improved silos. 



Hence, the following extract from a speech at Blois will not 

 be uninteresting: 



EARLY FRENCH EXPERIMENTS. 



In this address M. GofTart held that: "It is important to 

 avoid all kinds of fermentation during and after ensilage . Fer- 

 mentation can be produced whenever desired, and a few hours 

 suffice to give all its useful effects. Take each evening, from 

 your silo, the maize required for the next day's feeding, and in 

 fifteen or sixteen hours after, however cold and free from fer- 

 mentation when taken out, it will be quite warm, in full fermen- 

 tation, and the animals will eat it greedily. Eight hours later it 

 will have to pass the proper limit and it will spoil rapidly." 



WHAT WILL ENSILAGE DO FOR US ? 



Ensilage will give us succulent food in winter, and also en- 

 able any farmer to tide over the droughts of summer by saving 

 the material in well built silos, and this at a minimum cost. By 

 this means many waste products of the farm, such as clean, 

 bright straw may be added to the green forage to assist in tak- 

 ing up the superabundant moisture, thus reducing the whole to 

 one homogeneous mass. 



Corn-fodder is not a perfect food in itself; it may be made 

 so by the addition of other matter, mill-stuff, bran, etc. To the 



