37 



ENSILAGE OF POTATOES. 



A recent number of the Bulletin des Seances de la Societe 

 Nationale d' Agriculture de France contains three communica- 

 tions on some experiments made to determine the possibility 

 of storing potatoes in silos. In the first, M. Aime Girard 

 details the results of experiments undertaken by MM. Vauchez 

 and Marchal with the view of ascertaining whether the heat 

 due to the fermentation of fodder plants in silos could be 

 utilised for cooking and preserving the potato. In these 

 experiments potatoes buried in a silo of crimson clover 

 {Tri folium incarnatum) acquired the characteristic colour of 

 that plant, as well as the smell developed by fermentation ; 

 the tubers were much flattened by the heavy pressure to 

 which they had been subjected ; their cohesion, also, was 

 greatly modified, and it was quite easy to pull them to pieces. 

 The potatoes were examined microscopically and chemically 

 by M. Girard, who ascertained that they had been cooked 

 'during the process. Thus, MM. V auchez and Marchal appear 

 to have demonstrated the practicability of this method of 

 cooking potatoes for fodder. The temperature in a silo of 

 green fodder plants rises to nearly i6o° Fahr. ; the potato 

 is automatically cooked, and acquires the property of being 

 ^easily digestible, which is requisite for its consumption by 

 cattle. 



That a high temperature (about i6o° Fahr.) is necessary is 

 rshew^n by an experiment carried out by M. Mir, who, in 

 order to determine whether maize, in spite of its size, could 

 be preserved without being cut up, placed large quantities 

 of the entire plant (stalks, leaves, and cobs) into a silo, and 

 enclosed also about a ton of potatoes in the centre. On open- 

 ing the silo, maize and potatoes were both perfectly good. 

 The tubers were flattened similarly to those in the experi- 



