Ee2')ort mi Experiments hij Local Agricultural Societies. 287 
growth, may be saved, independently of weather. This was 
known previously. But it is now proved that fodder, grass, 
clover, tares, &c., when already damaged — half spoiled — may be 
saved from further destruction, and become in a stack, under 
regulated pressure, useful stock food. 
The costs of making ensilage are shown to be much the same 
as making of hay in ordinary times. 
The value of ensilage as food, compared with hay as food, 
is considered so far equal that practical farmers find their stock 
thrive satisfactorily on either. 
In conclusion, I may say in advance, relative to the practical 
details furnished by my correspondents, whose reports in a 
narrative form will make up the pamphlet shortly to be issued, 
that the success of farmers who last wet season made ensilage 
under compulsion has been such, that in the future their example 
may be expected to introduce the making of ensilage by choice 
in all ordinary British summers. 
XIII. — Report on the Experiments conducted in 1888 hij Local 
Agricultural Societies, in conjunction ivith the Roijal 
Agricultural Society of England. By Dr. J. Augustus 
VoELCKER, B.A., B.Sc, Consulting Chemist to the Society. 
In 1888 the three following Societies continued the experiments 
initiated in 1886 : — 
The Essex Agricultural Society. 
The Royal Manchester Liverpool and North Lancashire 
Agricultural Society ; and 
The Norfolk Chamber of Agriculture. 
By each society the experiments were assiduously and carefully 
carried out ; they ^vere duly inspected, and though they exem- 
plified in several cases the impossibility of commanding success, 
the results obtained point, in the main, to the usefulness of field 
experiments, whilst considerable interest was aroused by them, 
both locally and generally. 
I. — Essex Agricultural Society. 
(Abstract of Report of Mr. Bernard Dyer, B.Sc, F.C.S. &c.. 
Consulting Chemist to the Society, and Mr. E. Rosling, 
F.R.M.S., of Melbourne, Chelmsford.) 
There were two sets of experiments, (A) continuation of the 
mangold experiments of 1887, with the object of seeing the 
effect on a subsequent oat crop of the manures applied for the 
