222 
Meporl on the Fractice of Ensilage ^ 
process of ensilage adopted by Count Roederer is sufficiently 
described above, but there are two other points worth notice. 
Firstly, I saw a quantity of silage of the 1882 crop at the bottom 
of one of the silos, without any covering whatever. With the 
exception of a thin layer of mould at the top it was perfectly 
good, and Count Roederer has since informed me that this 
remnant was eaten during last winter by his cattle most greedily. 
The second point that I noted was an ingenious arrangement 
for hoisting the silage from the bottom of these exceptionally 
deep pits. It may be briefly described as follows : — An inclined 
tramway leads from the top to the bottom of the silo, and upon 
this runs a small waggon with the hinder wheels much larger 
than the fore ones, so as to keep the waggon more or less 
horizontal, and to lessen the draught. The ascent of the loaded 
waggon was managed by a chain, wound up by a large hollow 
treadwheel, which could be worked either by a man or a horse. 
One of Count Roederer's visitors put this apparatus in motion 
for my special benefit, and I was rather astonished at the com- 
parative ease with which the work was performed. 
The silos of M. GofFart, at Burtin, in the Sologne, have been 
so often described, that it is unnecessary to say much about 
them here. I visited M. Goffart in Paris at the end of last 
year, and went to Burtin on January 7th this year. It is well 
known that M. Goffart has of late years retired from farming, 
and that of his three silos only one is now filled annually, and 
that with chopped maize. The silos are partly above and 
partly below ground, and the method adopted for emptying 
them is a sort of compromise between the system of taking^ the 
silage off in horizontal layers and that of cutting it down 
vertically. In other words, when, say, two or three boards and 
the superincumbent weights are taken off the top of the silage, 
it is cut down to the level of the ground, and the boards imme- 
diately and carefully placed upon the surface of silage thus 
exposed, so as not only to prevent any long contact of that 
surface with the air, but also to continue the pressure by using 
this covering of boards to the lower portion as a roadway to the 
exposed face of the upper half, the stones and other weighting 
material being also employed for the same purpose, except in 
the line of traffic. This struck me as being a very ingenious 
and sensible arrangement for emptying a silo built partly above 
and partly below ground. As M. Goffart has stated that his 
pitted maize does not ferment until after it has been exposed to 
the air for some hours, I was at particular pains to investigate 
this point, and took away with me a boxful of silage that had 
not previously been exposed to the air. It required no chemical 
analysis to show that M. Goffart's maize was a sort of saner- 
