196 
Report on the Practice of Ensilage, 
couple of men -while the others are putting the tools away. The fodder will 
be cut with a hay-bnife or spade vertically, and removed by a barrow or cart, 
to admit either of which there is a door sufficiently wide. 
As regards the succulence of the grass or its moist condition, I have never 
yet filled a silo during any appreciable amount of rain, but from what httle 
experience I have gained, I may say that 1 should like to have no rain-water, 
and the crops just ripe enough to make good hay ; and another year 1 shall be 
very particular to secure that climax. I have had no experience as to the 
keeping qualities of the fodder after it has been opened, but the arrangement 
of the mechanical pressure is carefully designed so as to require the removal of 
the pressure only Irom the jjart which is to be cut and removed. 
Hitherto I have had no experience with regard to the use of pitted fodder 
for stock,* but during the winter I mean to try, both with the old grass 
and the second crop seeds and clover preserved in the two silos, as sub- 
stitutes for turnips in fattening bullocks for the butcher. I shall probably 
give them the pitted fodder with linseed and cotton-cake, and possibly a 
further mixture of maize and bean-meal, which is my habitual mixture of 
stimulants. Anyhow, they shall have the same variety of such foods as a 
similar number of the same class of animals fed on turnips, thus making 
the experiment one of pitted fodder versus turnips. — Aur/ust 2oth, 1883. 
Mr. Johnson has since given me the following description of 
a new silo, with illustrations of the mechanical arrangement by 
which it is weighted : — 
The building is of brick, all above ground, with slated roof. It is 28 feet 
high up to the eaves, 10 feet by 18 feet inside, 9-inch walls, with the excep- 
tion of the front end, around doorway, which is 14-inch work ; and is designed 
to be filled to 22 feet high of silage, leaving the remainder for working room. 
I began to build about the 1st of September, and the fodder intended to be 
saved (second-crop seeds and clover) must be all in before, say, the second week 
in October, consequently there was no time for the lime to dry ; and, being 
ignorant also as to the amount of lateral pressure to be expected from within, 
I thought it safer to have the walls up to 22 feet from the ground set in 
cement. Experience i^roved there was no lateral pressure observable. My next 
silo wiU therefore be either sheet iron, wood, or O-icch brickwork set in lime. 
The bottom of the silo consists of a framework of rough wood (a, Fig. 4), 
upon which the silage rests, and which, taken hold of by two rods commimi- 
cating with one end of the lever-beam (c), enables the weight of the sils^e to 
be used as the fulcrum from which to inflict the pressure upon itself — thereby 
saving the necessity of heavy masonry, which would otherwise have to be 
provided to keep down the short end of the lever. 
The crop is at first thrown in through the large folding-doors (d) at the 
bottom, which are made wide enough to admit a cart to back into the silo to 
remove the silage. As the grass rises, this space is made up by loose boards 
(in my case old railway sleepers), one on the other edgeways. "When it has 
risen above this aperture it is forked off the cart by one man on to a scaffold (e), 
and thence by one man standing thereon through the long-shaped window (f), 
which, as the grass rises, is also made up with loose boards as before described 
* Since sending the replies to my questions, Mr. Johnson informed me, in a 
letter dated Dec. 3rd, that he had used the contents of the old silo in feeding 
sixteen head of stock, giving tliem only their artificial food in addition, and 
that one small heifer wliicli had Lad five weeks finishing upon it lie had sold 
by auction for 23Z. — probably the first ensilage-fed beast killed in the north of 
England. She had fattened very quickly. — H. M. J. 
