228 
Report on the Practice of Ensilage, 
Without entering into any minute mechanical details, it may be 
sufficient to state that the material to be chopped is placed in 
an ordinary chaff-cutter feeding-box (u), and is conveyed by 
means of an endless band to the governing cog-rollers (r, S, T, 
V, x), and thence to the cutting wheel. The pressure on the 
material is easily regulated by shifting the balance-weight (e) 
on the lever (j). The main shaft of the machine is shown 
at L ; it carries two pulleys for the transmission of power from 
the steam-engine, one being fixed and the other free. The 
ordinary speed of the machine is 400 revolutions per hour, but 
it can be driven at 500, and it is capable of cutting 10 tons of 
maize per hour to the length of about |ths inch. Notwith- 
standing this speed, the brake-power is sufficient to enable the 
machine to be stopped almost instantaneously, and the adjust- 
ing arrangements render it capable of cutting efficiently the 
finest as well as the coarsest materials. 
The foregoing description is very inadequate from the point 
of view of a mechanical engineer, but it may be deemed 
sufficient for the purposes of the practical farmer, aided as it is 
by the excellent illustrations which I have given, but which are 
the merest abstracts of those with which I have been favoured 
by M. Albaret. I should add one more detail descriptive of 
the elevating apparatus, that is to say, of the palettes and the 
shoot, especially with reference to the way in which they are 
worked. It will be obvious that the material to be chopped is 
introduced into the containing box, so as to meet the knives of 
the chaff-cutter, by means of a trough and endless band through 
an aperture in the centre of one side of it. In the centre of the 
opposite side and in front of the box are other apertures to 
admit the air, which becomes the elevating power for the 
conveyance of the chopped material into the silo or other 
desired place. The regulation of the strength of this current, 
without interfering with the speed of the chaff-cutter, is managed 
by means of a series of small doors along the upper side of the 
shaft. If all these doors are shut, the current of air obtains 
its maximum strength in proportion to the speed of the machine ; 
but if it be desired to reduce the vigour with which the chopped 
material is being delivered, it is only necessary to open one or 
more of these doors, and thus allow atmospheric air to be 
admitted into the shoot, so as to diminish the force of the 
blast. Unfortunately the price of the machine is high, namely 
88Z. (2200 francs), at at the Liancourt Railway Station. 
I saw this machine working successfully and smoothly 
at the farm of my friend, M. Lecouteux, at Cer(;ay, in the 
Sologne — a description of whose silos 1 have given on p. 217 
— on October 1, 1883 ; and I am not without hope that 
