The Agricultural Lessons of " The Eighties." 285 
utilise straw, hay and root crops to full advantage, or to produce 
good farmyard manure. 
We must, however, fix our attention upon the best examples 
of farming when endeavouring to discover the lessons taught in 
any given period ; and taking the practice of our best farmers, 
there has been a successful effort towards the reduction of 
costs. 
Economy is shown in the demand for good stock; in the 
care with which feeding-materials are purchased and mixed ; in 
the interest taken in the proper ratio of carbo-hydrates to albu- 
minoids ; in the growth of the excellent system of selling cattle 
by live weight; in employing improved implements; in greater 
care in purchasing grass-seeds ; in better methods of manuring ; 
in a more rigorous supervision of labour ; in greater care in the 
management of live-stock ; in economy of straw and hay, and in 
other ways which might be mentioned. In all these points 
there was, and in many cases there is still room for improve- 
ment ; but one of the salutary lessons of these sad times has 
been that, if farming is to be profitable, it must be carried on 
upon sound economical principles. 
8. Ensilage. 
The system of ensilage belongs essentially to the " Eighties." 
Previous to 1880 it was confined tc a few amateurs and land- 
lords; but in the autumn of 1882 the movement recrossed the 
Atlantic, like many other ideas which have been evolved in 
England and developed in America. The system, as first 
described in this Journal, was exceedingly simple, and might 
be summed up as the burying of grass in trenches. Such a 
crude method was not likely to remain unchallenged in England, 
and the elementary process of crushing down green fodder into 
pits, and weighting it with soil, soon developed into improved 
systems, with cemented silos furnished with hydraulic presses 
or levers bearing upon well-fitting boards. Chaff-cutters were 
also regarded as indispensable. 
The first reaction from -the system of expensively constructed 
silos, necessarily fixed to one position, was the making of stack 
silage with the aid of wire-rope pressure, invented by Mr. C. 
Johnson, of Croft, and, later, adopted by the Aylesbury Dairy 
Company. Presses were also made by the Ensilage Press Com- 
pany, Leicester, Messrs. Pearson, and others, which are now in 
extensive use. But it must be allowed that a further and salu- 
tary development was effected when it began to be discovered 
that good silage could be made in stacks without any mechanical 
aid. This fact was extensively proved in the wet summer of 
