at Home and Abroad. 
167 
weights were taken off, the silo refilled, and the material weighted down with 
120 lbs. per square loot. In both cases the material was first covered with 
inch boards, about 1 inch shorter in length than the width of the pits, and 
bricks were then used to the weights stated. No salt or other material was 
mixed with the green stuff, and some details of the procedure, such as not 
chopping the green oats, &c., in shorter lengths, and not chopping the grass 
at all, were adopted, owing to the smallness of the occupation and the 
irregularity of the growth of the cro^K not making it worth while to hire a 
steam-engine. 
The weight of the materials put into the silos was 96 tons, but I cannot 
undertake to keep an account of the weight of material taken out, as the 
cowman takes out rations for the cows morning and evening, and will do so 
for the next eight months. The total expense connected with the filling of 
my silos came to os. Gd. per ton for everything : but I had to pay highly for 
labour, as I live in the suburbs of a town where labour is very dear. The 
process of emptying the silo is done by cutting the material down vertically, 
as hay from a haystack. 
I have no arable land, and by the process of ensilage I hope to save the 
purchase of roots, grains. Sec, for winter use, and the securing of much better 
milk, cream, and butter, and in larger quantities than I have had when using 
roots. My experience in the use of pitted fodder for stock extends over a 
period of three weeks only, during which my milch cows have been fed with it 
night and morning, on coming in from and before going out to grass. The 
cows eat it with avidity, and the milk has slightly increased in quantity and 
greatly in quality. I give them a quarter of a linseed-cake and a quarter of a 
cotton-cake each per day. In my opinion the ensilage system is of the 
greatest jiossible imix)rtance to farmers generally, as it makes the dairy-farmer 
without arable land independent of root crops, and the arable farmer may 
turn dair\Tnan without grass-land. This appears to me to be of paramoimt 
importance to the latter class, as with a little management and with the help 
of a silo a very heavy weight of greer food may be grown and stored without 
in any way trenching upon the present system of arable farming. By this 
means much|more stock can be bred, and a much larger quantity of cheese and 
butter be produced, than under the present system, thus enabling the British 
farmer to put into his pocket at all events a share of the enormous sum now 
paid annually to foreigners for those products. I think this may be done by 
sowing rye or any other early green crop suitable upon the wheat stubbles. 
By so doing, the exposure without a crop of the bare fallows, so much 
deprecated by agricultural chemists, would be avoided. The green crop would 
be cut and pitted in the third week in Ma^-, leaving ample time for cleaning 
the land for the turnip crop. This plan is now adop ted by fanners when 
growing tares for consumption by cart-horses on their own farms. — October 
lith, 1883. 
Pri. — My cows, calves, and pigs have been feeding on the silage (without 
hay or roots) since September. They are all in first-rate condition, and the 
yield of milk and butter has l)een most satisfactory. Having read in the 
papers that butter from silage-fed cows is tainted with the flavour of 
silage, I may say that such is not the ca.se ; but if thi-ough want of care the 
milk diu-ing milking time or afterwards should be left under the influence <>f 
the smell, it will, as a matter of course, become impregnated with that as it 
would with any other pungent odour. Since I have given strict orders on 
this point, there has never been the slightest flavour in milk or butter. I am 
perfectly convinced that with underground silos a pump will be necessary, 
and the condition of the silage Avill not be endangered bv the u^e of it.— 
Fehruarij 7th, 1884. 
