1920.] Notes on Agriculture Abroad. 



1105 



1. The Weight of Seed sent must be as follows: — Broad beans 



and Scarlet Runner beans, 8 oz. ; peas and dwarf French 

 beans, 6 oz. ; wheat, barley, oats, rye, vetches, red clover, 

 crimson clover, trefoil, lucerne, and sainfoin, 4 oz. ; all grasses, 

 alsike clover, white clover, all roots, beet and mangold, 2 oz. ; 

 all vegetable seeds, other than beet and mangold, \ oz. 



2. Fees must be sent at the same time as the sample. The fees 



are as follows : [a) In the case of tests which a farmer requires 

 for his own information only, 2>d- per sample ; [h) in the case 

 of tests needed for the purpose of a declaration for sale, 15. 

 per sample for cereals, is. 6d. per sample for roots, vegetables 

 and vetches, and 2s. per sample for grasses, clovers, mangold 

 and beet. Postage need not be prepaid when packages are 

 properly addressed and sent by letter post. 



3. Packages should be addressed to : The Director, Seed Testing 



Station, Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, 18, Leigham 

 Court Road, Streatham Hill, S.W. 16. 



4. Special envelopes may be obtained by farmers, free of cost, on 



application to the above address. 



Mechanical Pressure Silage.— In 1 91 3 Samarani published 

 an account* of experiments with artificially weighted silage 



made in containers. The pressure, at first 

 Notes on^Agnculture obtained with weights (about 5-6 cwt. per 



square yard), applied immediately after 

 filling, was in subsequent experiments obtained by means 

 of a screw press. From these latter experiments the writer 

 draws the following among other conclusions : — 



(1) That as a result of the greatest possible exclusion of 

 air "a check is given to the intercellular fermentation which 

 tends to produce acetic acid through the formation of alcohol, 

 and thus a larger quantity of saccharine matter is left at the 

 disposal of the lactic acid fermentation, with an enhanced acid 

 production." 



(2) That silage so prepared, being poorer in acetic and but^nric 

 acids, provides forage of a less intense odour than ordinary 

 sour silage. 



He supports his conclusions by numerous analyses. In these 

 experiments the thermometer during the first ten days never 

 rose higher than 23° C. (74° F.), having recorded 19° C. (67° F.) 

 on the day of filling. Any rise of temperature, says the writer, 

 should be checked by the exertion of greater pressure. It is 

 in this possibiHty of graduated pressure that the advantage 

 of the screw press lies. 



* Samarani : Studi intorno alia conservazione dei foraggi alio stato verde. 

 (Boll, del Ministero di Agricoltura, etc., Italy, Aug.-Dec, 1913, pp. 87-103.) 



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