during the Wet Season of 1888. 
283 
employed were nearly all alike efScient, and may be accepted as 
reliable guides. Accordingly, what recently was but a theory 
has been, by the actual experience of fixrmers, advanced into a 
workable system. 
At this date, April 1889, the owners of forage crops in the 
United Kingdom and Ireland have before them several weeks 
wherein to form their plans for saving such crops in a difficult 
season, whilst in July 1888 often only a week was afforded to 
farmers to adopt means of preservation, or to see their grass, 
clover, and other crops become utterly spoiled. It will, there- 
fore, be prudent for agriculturists to form now a leisurely de- 
cision as to the action they will take in the approaching hay 
harvest ; and the following remarks are offered to assist them 
in coming to safe conclusions : — 
Those who have tried both silos and stacks often express 
still a decided conviction that silos below, partly below, or above 
the surface, have many advantages even upon the grounds of 
strict economy (upon which special grounds many inexperienced 
persons object to them). Silos are convenient, reliable, and 
allow of weight or pressure being applied cheaply and effectu- 
ally. Half pressure in a silo appears to equal in results double 
the force required for making ensilage in stacks, and com- 
monly the waste in silos is much less than in a stack. At the 
same time, the making of ensilage in stacks is often deservedly 
preferred under various conditions, such as sudden necessity from 
bad weather ; the distance of a crop from a built silo ; and the 
advantage of placing a store of winter food for stock exactly 
where it will be most wanted. In this last particular the 
replies of my correspondents from their practice of last season are 
of great value, by establishing, on irrefragable evidence, the 
success of ensilage stacks made under the most unfavourable 
conditions of weather. Nevertheless the same experiments have 
determined a vexed question, and tell the unwelcome fact that 
the waste round the outsides of stacks is considerable in most 
cases. Perhaps the chief gain in knowledge from the ensilage 
stack experiments of 1888 is the result that good ensilage may 
be made without that impermeable closure that is considered 
necessary in silos. Next, the paramount importance of pressure 
of forage in a stack is made clear, notwithstanding isolated 
instances of crops having been preserved without any further 
pressure than was given in building the mass by treading of 
workmen, or by the passage of horses and carts over the stack.^ 
' The Editor has been favoured by Lord Egerton of Tatton with the following 
very interesting description of the making of Clamp Ensilage at Tatton Farm 
