232 
■Report on the Practice of Ensilage, 
from remarking upon the relative features, whether good, bad, 
or indifferent, of the two machines that I have described and 
illustrated, feeling that my functions as a reporter have, under 
the circumstances, been discharged in the foregoing pages, and 
that anything further from me might tend to mar what ought 
to be an interesting and instructive competition at Shrewsbury 
next July. 
Summary and Conclusions. 
Having given the evidence kindly furnished by more than 
forty gentlemen who have practised ensilage for a greater or less 
length of time, both at home and abroad, it remains for me to 
endeavour to give a judicial summing up, and to indicate in 
some measure what the verdict of the agricultural public is 
likely to be on the case as it is now presented to them. For 
this purpose it will be convenient to commence with the con- 
struction of the silo, and to follow with the process of ensilage, 
the utilisation of the silage, and the capabilities of the 
system, — in their natural sequence. 
Construction of Silos.- — Silos are either above ground or below 
ground, or partly above and partly below, or on a slope. They 
are either old buildings modified or unmodified, or they are 
new ones specially constructed. There are many English 
farms, the steadings of which comprise a large barn, whose 
occupation is to a great extent (/07ie. A large number of silos 
have been constructed simply by making one or more brick 
partitions at the end of one of these large barns. This is a 
simple and inexpensive manner of forming a silo, and has 
therefore been adopted by a large number of my correspondents. 
In fact, it may be said that it yields in simplicity and cheapness 
to no other method except that followed by Mr. Trepplin, which 
is to turn the whole barn bodily into a silo ! This wholesale 
proceeding, however, is only what the late Mr. Jonas and his 
Cambridgeshire neighbours have done for years, except that at 
Kenil worth all the fodder is green, whereas what Mr. Jonas 
described to me in 1870 * was a mixture of green food (rye, 
tares, &c.) and oat or wheat chaff. He then said : " Myself and 
sons have carried out this system of storing old chaff to such an 
extent, that we are using on our occupation (which consists of 
4200 acres of arable land) seven barns which were previously 
used for storing corn." These converted buildings, or portions 
of buildings, have in all cases answered the purpose admirably. 
In the nature of things they are above ground, but in some 
• Joura. Roy. Agric. Soc. Second series, vol. vi., Pait I., p. 120. 
