at Home and Abroad. 
179 
j'ou will see it is but a small proportion. Yet this would give to the silage 
at the bottom of the silo a very strong flavour, and leave the silage iu a 
much stronger state than I dare venture to give it to the cattle. You will be 
pleased to hear that our actual weight out of the silo corresponds exactly with 
the weight we put into the same. The cubic foot at the bottom weighed 
heavier than I expected, but this is simply accounted for hy the existence of 
the moisture, so you will see that as there is no drain to the silo there is not 
the slightest loss. I have no doubt if a drain had been laid we might have 
lost 5 or 6 cwt., or, perhaps I ought to say, more ; because, not only would 
the salt, being soluble, have gone, but no doubt with the excessive weight 
some moisture out of the grass would have found its way through the 
syphon, which we should try to keep." 
23. Earl Fortescue, Castle Hill, South Motion, Devon. — My silo is 19 feet 
long, G feet 9 inches wide, and 5 feet 3 inches deep, and its cubic capacity 
is 673 feet. It is above the level of the soil, and has four stone walls — three 
existing walls utilised, and only the fourth built — the sides and bottom 
being cemented. It has no drain, and it is roofed with movable sheets of 
corrugated iron. It actually cost 11?. 10s., including everything — all the 
materials, labour, &c., of which labour came to about two-fifths. On the 
2oth of July it was filled with the grass of about 1 acre of an unwatered 
meadow left for hay, when still green and not too ripe to make good hay ; 
ten days later, after the silage had subsided about a foot, it was filled up 
with coarse grass from an orchard. The grass, a heavy crop, was still wet at 
the bottom from recent rain, though the day was dry when it was mown, 
when it was cut by a chafi'-cutter into about f-inch lengths, and put into the 
silo immediately afterwards. When the silo was full, ploughed and tongued 
boards were placed upon the mass, and sawdust and large stones on the top 
of them, so as to give a pressure of about 50 lbs. to the square foot ; the 
boards, sawdust, weights, and roof were replaced upon it, and it was left until 
opened — December 20th. 
The grass from the meadow and the orchard was considered to be the 
produce of about 1\ acre, which it was estimated would have yielded about 
2 tons of rather coarse hay. When the silo was opened the silage had 
shrunk about a foot, and occupied about 513 cubic feet, and its weight was 
about 36 lbs. to the cubic foot ; it was found about as moist as when it was 
put in. The entire cost for labour in cutting, filling. &c., was 37s., of which 
the cutting to chaff cost 8s. It is not yet quite emptied. It is cut down 
vertically, like hay from a stack. 
All the cows eventually took to it, and so did the horses greedily after a 
day or two, and seemed to do well on it. 
As to the keeping qualities, we found that if left about long after being 
cut, it became mildewed: it therefore required to be eaten within 2 or 3 
days; but the face of the silage left in the silo after each cutting does not 
seem to change for 8 or 10 days. The cows, which received daily 33J lbs. of 
silage instead of 12 lbs. of hay, but had 2 lbs. of oilcake, 2 lbs. of undecor- 
ticated cotton-cake, and 2 lbs. decorticated and 2 lbs. of pollard and 5|- lbs. of 
straw-chaff besides, kept their condition, and gave a slight increase of milk 
and butter of hardly appreciably deteriorated quality from what they had 
given before that substitution: but the cows with 50 lbs. of silage sub- 
stituted for the hay and straw-chaff (the cake and pollard remaining the 
same), went back in condition, and gave slightly less milk and butter than 
before, and that of decidedly inferior quality. — January ZOth, 1884. 
Earl Fortescue's experience, it will be observed, differs from 
that of several experimenters, but agrees with that of Mr. Gibson 
N 2 
