Mar. 6, 191s 
Fermentation of Corn Silage 
365 
SILAGE MADE UNDER ANTISEPTIC CONDITIONS 
Com silage made in the presence of ether and chloroform, as done by 
Babcock and Russell (1), is, of course, well preserved and evolves, after 
the antiseptic has been allowed to evaporate, an odor quite aromatic and 
characteristic of silage. The exact amount of antiseptic which should 
be added to inhibit bacterial growth without seriously impairing enzymic 
action is, however, very difficult to estimate. Moreover, Wagner (25) 
has found that certain bacteria may flourish in the presence of benzene, 
phloroglucinol, phenol, and phenolic derivatives. Some experimental 
silage was made, however, in the presence of chloroform, toluene, and 
cresol. Analytical data on these are shown in Table I. 
Table I .—Analytical data on antiseptic silage 
[Calculated on basis of ioo gm. of dry silage.] 
Kind of silage. 
Total acid¬ 
ity (iV/zo). 
Alcohol. 
NH*-N. 
Typical green com. 
C. c. 
34 
31 
250 
255 
675 
Gm. 
0 
Gm. 
0. 052 
. 0^7 
Toluene silage (2 per cent).. 
Trace. 
Chloroform silage (5 per cent). 
. 176 
. IOO 
Cresol silage (0.5 per cent). 
°* I 5 
.81 
Normal silage. 
.256 
! 
The amount of toluene added seems to have been enough to stop 
practically all change. No bacterial growth was obtained from the 
chloroform silage. It seems likely that the jar of cresol silage contained 
a limited number of active organisms, as two forms were isolated from 
this silage, one of them an acid former, and no evidence of spore forma¬ 
tion could be obtained with either of these organisms. Some of the 
results of the work with antiseptics have been introduced here to show 
the apparent impossibility of obtaining conclusive results, at least with 
silage, by using such methods alone. These data, however, may be of 
some value when compared to other data shown on the following pages. 
Further experiments with varying amounts of antiseptics were not 
attempted, as it seemed likely that other methods would give more 
conclusive results. 
OTHER EXPERIMENTAL SILAGE 
An effort was made to learn the effect of bacteria and yeasts alone, by 
heating jars of chopped com to destroy the enzyms, followed by inocula¬ 
tion with an infusion of normal silage, which should carry the normal 
mixed flora of silage. After inoculation the jars were in each case incu¬ 
bated at 28° to 30° C., with a control jar of normal silage made from the 
same sample of com. The analytical data, which are interesting but 
not conclusive, are shown in Table II. 
