ILLINOIS . STATE DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. IO9 



a French newspaper sent him early in the year. These silos 

 were built of brick; built inside his barn after the corn was 

 planted, and were twenty-five feet long, four feet wide, and ten 

 feet deep; were filled October ist, with corn cut fine, covered 

 with straw and boards and weighted with stone. Christmas 

 day was celebrated on this farm by opening the silo and feeding 

 the ensilage to cows, horses, mules, sheep and hogs; most of 

 them eating it readily, and preferring it to the best of hay. 

 Since 1878 Mr. Morris has increased his silo capacity to 1,000 

 tons, which is evidence enough to show what he thinks of the 

 system of ensilage. 



Mr. C. W. Mills, a grain merchant of New York, familiar 

 with all kinds of wheat and corn, was fascinated with the luxuri- 

 ous character of some species of southern corn and determined 

 to try the experiment of hybridizing this with the northern 

 variety, so he planted on his farm at Pompton, N. J., alternate 

 rows of northern and southern varieties. This was in the spring 

 of 1875. When September came, his northern crop was ripe 

 and ready for harvesting, but the southern variety had just got 

 fairly to growing, and showed no signs of maturing; what was 

 he to do? If frost came his crop would be lost. The old adage: 

 "Necessity is the mother of invention," proved true. Mr. Mills 

 had heard of the method of keeping roots by burying them in 

 the ground, so he dug pits, filled them with green corn, covered 

 with boards and heaped earth upon the boards. When the pits 

 were opened, the feed was found to be in a tolerably fair condi- 

 tion; the stock ate it readily, but portions of it were mouldy, 

 and as the pits were disturbed decay went on rapidly. This 

 experiment could hardly be called a success from a financial 

 stand-point, but it furnished the key which unlocked the secret 

 of preserving green crops in silos — one of the grandest inven- 

 tions of the century. In 1877 Mr. Mills built two silos of 600 

 tons capacity, which he filled with corn and made a complete 

 success of the system of ensilage without ever hearing of Goffart 

 or Morris. Thus the ball was started rolling, gathering mo- 



