244 
Report on the Practice of Ensilage, 
future experiments, it will have been seen that my correspond- 
ents are now generally prone to attribute at least as great a 
feeding value to silage as to hay, and further to credit Ensilage 
with " Safety " and to debit Hay-making with " Risk." 
The functions of Ensilage in the Economy of the Farm. — Most 
of the advances which are made in the arts and sciences, as well 
as in our everyday practices, we owe to enthusiasts ; and 
ensilage, especially in England, is another illustration of this 
historic and well-known fact. It is perhaps as well that British 
phlegm should be sufficiently powerful, and sufficiently distri- 
buted amongst English agriculturists, to induce them to question 
closely many of the statements that have been made by the 
more enthusiastic advocates of ensilage. I cannot believe, what 
I have heard asserted, that 1 ton of grass made into silage is 
worth several times as much as if it were made into hay. I can 
believe, however, that the feeding value of silage from a given 
weight of grass may be sometimes greater than that from the 
same weight of precisely similar grass if . made into hay under 
even favourable circumstances. This is because, in my view, the 
haymaking process tends to render a portion of the woody fibre 
of the grass harder and more indigestible than it was before, 
while the process of ensilage tends to render it mechanically 
softer and chemically more digestible. 
But does it follow that ensilage is to supplant hay-making ? 
To answer this question even approximately is rather difficult, 
because there is no pursuit with so kaleidoscopic a character as 
farming. It may also be said of farms, as it has been said of 
faces, that no two are exactly alike. However, it may be allow- 
able to give an imaginary example, if only to enable each 
reader to make his own additions to, and subtractions from, 
my illustration, so as to fit it to his own circumstances in 
different seasons, and with altering markets. For this purpose I 
will suppose an ordinary 400 acre farm, with no more than one- 
fourth of its area permanent pasture. The complete substitution 
of ensilage for hay-making would require silo accommodation 
for the permanent grass off about, say, 50 acres, as well as for 
the aftermath at least of the seed- course, and probably tares, &c., 
besides. Where there is no breeding flock, and also where 
breeding cattle are not kept, the demand for silo accommodation 
would be even greater, because the speciality would be feeding 
beasts in the winter. However, 50 acres of grass might be sup- 
posed to yield in the course of the year 6 tons of green fodder, say 
a total of 300 tons ; the aftermath of the 75 acres of seeds might 
also be roughly estimated at not loss than 200 tons, say upwards 
of 500 tons of silo-capacity required. The provision of silos to 
this extent would require a capital expenditure of certainly not 
