THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
284 
into the best condition to mold. I have found that the 
silage-cutter should be set on the ground, not on a high 
table, and so low that the table of the cutter will not come 
up to the top of the wagon-rack, and it should be provided 
with a 12-foot extension- table, at least two feet Higher at 
the far end than the knives. The fodder wagon should be 
driven up close alongside this table, and the com fodder 
be taken from the wagon in small bundles and thrown 
with a half swing on to the table only as fast as it can be 
sent through the knives. By this plan the man on the wagon 
and myself at the machine could dispose of a ton of fod¬ 
der-corn in eight minutes. 
I have learned that by the labor of six men and three teams, 
from 40 to 45 tons of silage should be cut and put in the 
pits every 10 hours. This can be done by each man doing 
his own work and keeping in his place, and no man should 
be hired to staud in another’s way. Corn can be cut in 
the field, drawn and put in the silo for 25 cents per ton. 
Doing the work costs me less. I have learned that after 
silage has been put in the silo it should not be covered 
for four or five days—not until all the air has been expelled 
by heating—and then a couple of feet of old straw put on 
and tramped down, make the best cover next to a foot of 
marsh hay, which is the best cover yet devised. Between 
planks, paper, weights and no cover at all, uncovered 
silage will come out with the least loss. 
I have learned that if corn is mature in the glazed dent¬ 
ing stage, when cut for the silo, it will, in a tight silo, 
make “sweet silage”—i. c., the dent and white Southern 
com will. .Sweet corn can not be depended upon to make 
sweet silage. Its natural juices and sugars will be con¬ 
verted into acid. Other things being equal, the largest, 
rankest-growing kinds of dent com make the best silage, 
provided the corn is thinly planted—about eight quarts 
per acre—and kept clean and is not root-pruned. Root- 
pruning can not be allowed if the best silage is to be made. 
I have learned that two tons of my kind of silage are 
worth more as feed for my cows than one ton of the best 
hay, and that one acre of silage affords ample winter feed 
for two cows. If giving milk, they will also need six 
pounds each of fine middlings daily. 
Ohio. 
FROM J. T. BROOKS. 
We share the general experience that silage, if well cut 
and well tramped along the sides and in the corners of the 
pit, needs little if any weighting. A few inches of cut 
straw or hay, one thickness of tarred paper and the board 
or plank followers on top, covered with a few sticks of wood 
merely to keep them down, afford all the covering or weight 
that is necessary. Again, the best silage seems to come 
from well matured corn. Last fall (1889) we uncovered a 
silo after it had been filled and settled, and we cut and put 
in the pit about six acres of mature corn which had been 
in shock for 30 days and which we had intended to husk. 
Instead of doing so, however, we cut com and fodder all 
together and put it in the silo, and it proved the best silage 
we ever had. The cows needed no bran or shorts while 
eating it. At one of our farms we continued feeding silage 
with very excellent results until August 1. And at another 
of our farms where the silo capacity for com exceeds that 
of the adjoining barn, we began, last month (March) to 
feed from the first of two silos which were filled in 1888. 
The silage is perfectly good and we have enough in those 
two silos to carry 32 cows until next fall, and have there¬ 
fore nothing to fear from drought, so far as our cows there 
are concerned, for the season of 1890. There is no longer 
doubt or uncertainty in respect to the many advantages of 
a good system of preserving and feeding silage. All who 
see ensilage practiced on our farms become converts. 
Salem, O. 
FROM 8. M. COLCORD. 
My preserved green forage this year is the best I have 
ever made. It is almost impossible that a sample of silage 
sent a considerable distance by mail should be received in 
as good condition as when it left the silo. Mine usually 
changes in some respects, but it develops no foul odors, 
because there has been no heat or fermentation in the silo. 
All of it around the walls, the door, and on the top is as 
perfect as when it was put into the silo. The sample I 
send the Rural is perfect now. If it changes by close con¬ 
finement and is then exposed to the air, I think it will 
“ resuscitate,” and in a short time reassume the condition 
in which it would be if taken fresh from the field and 
carefully desiccated. [The sample was received in perfect 
condition—sweet and fragrant.— Eds.J I have discovered 
no carbonic acid in the silo this year; the juice is sweet and 
odorless, and exposure to air improves its appearance, odor 
and taste. The silo was kept covered for just two months 
before it was opened; the pressure was by screws; the 
cover kept level; the pressure was continuous enough to 
keep about two inches of juice in the bottom. When the 
silo was opened, any of,the forage would yield over half its 
weight of juice under pressure. At the very center, the 
forage remained at a temperature of 78 deg., without 
variation, for six weeks. This was higher than ever before, 
and was owing to suspension of filling for one and a-half 
day spent in repairing the cutter, and one Sunday, but the 
governors worked so perfectly that the forage sustained no 
damage. 
The animals seem to like the forage better than ever; 
about half of them prefer it to grain, and when both feeds 
are put together in their cribs, they will eat the forage 
first, and if over-fed will leave the grain. The silo has 
been opened one week, and during this time the milk 
flow of 14 cows has increased over 20 per cent.; last year 
that of 19 cows doubled in 35 days. Every year while 
I have been working by this system, the operation has 
become more rapid and economical, and has required less 
care and labor, as the men have grown accustomed to 
the machinery and the work. The first year this silo 
was filled the operation took 7% days, with new ma¬ 
chinery and men not accustomed to the work; this year 
with the same machinery and crew the work was done 
in four days, and the silo would have been filled with 10 
acres of corn (158 tons) cut to half-inch lengths covered 
and pressed, inside that time if the work had not been sus¬ 
pended on account of repairs and Sunday. The forage is 
continually improving in quality. On the lower half there 
is an additional weight of 400 pounds to the square foot, 
owing to the superincumbent pressure by the forage above, 
and it is consequently in a better condition to improve as 
it lies in its own free juice, and I find that the lower half, 
the back end and the last removed from the silo have the 
greatest feeding value. Quite the reverse is the case with 
ordinary silage, because where heat and fermentation are 
prominent, there is a constant tendency towards decom¬ 
position and a real destruction, consequently when silage 
is first opened, after the top portion has been removed, 
the upper one-third or one-half is usually in a much better 
condition than that which has been exposed to higher 
temperature for a longer time. 
People who are satisfied with silage have never seen 
forage made by this system, and in cdnsequence of their 
experience with silage they do not believe in the preserva¬ 
tion of forage of a quality very much better than that 
which they are accustomed to handle; but if they 
knew that by this system it was made more 
economically as well as better, they would be more 
anxious to investigate and be convinced, because' 
the enhanced quality of the food produces a correspond¬ 
ing improvement in the quality of the milk, butter, beef 
and mutton made from it. I think I have proved all these' 
points except in the case of mutton, about which I have 
had no experience; but from my experience with young 
calves and from what people say who have fed silage to 
sheep, I have no doubt that it would be the best food to 
develop lambs, sheep, mutton and wool. 
I do not and cannot estimate the advantages of this 
system over the Fry or any other systems of producing 
silage at less than double, and I do not take into this 
estimate all the waste of silage as now produced, or the 
entire failure and abandonment of silos, oi even the varied 
success and partial failure from year to year in the same 
silo, under apparently the same conditions. If farmers can 
realize that such a statment as I make can be true, and 
that they can double their dairy products, while improv¬ 
ing their quality and filling their own pockets and feed¬ 
ing the farm at the same time, they ought to come and see 
the system in operation, and satisfy themselves. My ex¬ 
perience is that in work of this kind, laboratory work or 
experiments with small quantities do not give the facts; to 
be of value there must be quantity (many tons), time 
(nine or 10 months), many animals (10 to 25), careand quick 
manipulation, and careful attention to regularity, tem¬ 
perature, weights and measures. I do not mean by this 
that time should be fooled away in non-essentials; but 
that all operations should go on orderly, without waste 
of time or labor, for the sake of economy and the best 
results. 
Since writing the above, we have cut down the first cut 
across the end to the center, and have there found the de¬ 
sired carbonic acid, in the lower half of the silo. There is 
abundant juice throughout the mass of the forage and the 
temperature is gradually falling. There seems to be no¬ 
thing more to be desired to improve the forage, either in 
the crop or the manner of handling it, or the strength, 
durability and convenience of the silo as connected with 
the barn. There is no waste whatever of the forage. It 
takes no longer to remove it from the silo and feed it to 
the stock than in the case of hay and grain, and no more 
labor is required. In process of time there may be found 
more economical situations for building and more econom¬ 
ical ways of making silos, and it may be found that my 
method of pressure can be improved; but my present 
method is the best, surest and most economical yet devised. 
The system can be put into operation by any farmer, and 
it does not require skilled labor to build. Cement and 
lumber have to be bought; all other things are upon the 
farm, especially where stone is convenient, and in most 
cases coarse gravel is preferable to heavy stone for build¬ 
ing. The quantity and proportions are all laid down in 
my book. From five to 10 farms can furnish everything 
for five to 10 silos, so that each one can have a silo without 
employing outside labor. The same kind of lumber can 
be used in building the walls of all of them, and my book 
gives an illustrated design of the staying, so that the 
mason work must go up true and level. If the man who 
erects the staying knows how to use a plumb line, level 
and saw, a mason tender who knows how to mix cement 
is just as good as a skilled mason. Each farmer can collect 
his small cobble stones, and by estimating the number of 
cubic feet in his wall, can know just how many barrels of 
cement he wants, and poor farmers can have just as good 
silos as rich men, by each helping the other on the co-oper¬ 
ative plan, and the poor farmer who can’t afford to build, 
can’t afford to go without a silo, or get along with half re¬ 
sults when he can double them. The farm needs the 
manure, the farmer needs the milk and money. 
The very fact that irrigated land produces the finest 
possible crops would seem to be an argument against 
watering the vast tracts of arid lands at the West. There 
is already food enough in the country. Why crowd us 
with more now that farm products are at their very low¬ 
est price ? 
In the glorious days ahead of us when the dreams of 
“Looking Backward” have become realities, we may have 
county implement agents elected by the people as county 
clerks are now elected. As it is expected that all public 
officials will be honest then the “ middlemen’s share” will 
probably go to the farmer. 
MAY 3 
THE HISTORY AND PROPAGATION OF THE AMER¬ 
ICAN POTATO. 
BY ROBERT P. HARRIS, M. D., PHILADELPHIA. 
(Concluded from Last Week.) 
As TnE American potato is one of the 600 Solanums, 
many of which are poisonous, some of them deadly so, and 
very few of them food-bearing, there arose a prejudice 
against it among working people, and a baseless notion 
that the tubers were a slow poison, and capable if con¬ 
sumed daily, of causing the death of the eater in about 
five years. This is not so much to be wondered at, when 
we consider that both the tomato and the egg-plant, two 
much longer known Solauums, were once feared to be 
poisonous by even men of science. The poison conjecture 
against potatoes gradually gave away before the evidences 
of innocence established at the tables of the unprejudiced. 
As a member of a poison family, the American potato is a 
curiosity in science, the plant and seed-ball being poison¬ 
ous, and the matured tuber containing no solania. This 
is, however, developed by the processor germination, when 
it is found in the sprouts, and to a small degree in the old 
tuber, enough to make it bitter and unwholesome: solania 
is not a very active poison. 
It is impossible to give an age to the cultivated American 
potato: the development of tubers from the wild state in 
Peru probably had its origin in an accident, the soil con¬ 
taining them on the mountain side being dug down, ter¬ 
raced, cultivated and fertilized (with guano), thus causing 
growth and improvement without planting. The Incas 
brought the terrace system of agriculture, with the use of 
irrigation and fertilizing, to a marvelous degree of per¬ 
fection, and the sides of the Andes gave them all the 
climatic zones under one latitude. It is probable that both 
the papas and cara (potato and maize) were grown for 
centuries before the Spanish invasion. As the Indians of 
North America were in a measure rodents, it is easy to 
account for their dissemination and planting of the wild 
Openawk. They still cultivated the wild potato in Wash¬ 
ington Territory 80 years ago. 
To develop a wild tuber into a product of mature growth, 
will require from four to seven years, according to the 
stock planted and the feeding of the soil, or its natural 
good qualities. The experimenter should not be discour¬ 
aged by the results of his first year’s crop, but persevere by 
planting each year the product of the one before it, until 
he secures maturity of development. It should be borne 
in mind that wild tubers from the tropics are apt to be very 
late in maturing in our climate, and some are not at all 
adapted to the length of our potato season. As tubers may 
now be found in many localities north of the tropics, it will 
be advisable to select such as grow in Texas, Arizona, etc. 
To secure a hardy variety of potatoes can only be done 
by experiments in seed planting, in rearing hybrids until 
the product gives satisfaction when fully tested, and in 
this work there are many more failures than successes. The 
late Rev. Chauucey E. Goodrich, of Utica, N. Y., was the 
most persevering originator of potato seedlings that ever 
lived, having produced from 13,000 to 15,000 in the 16 years 
prior to his death, in 1864. Mr. Goodrich experimented 
with 14 samples of potatoes from .South America that were 
either wild stock, or believed to be closely related thereto. 
In 1849 and 1850, he tried two tubers from Bogota, of which 
one proved to be entirely too late, and the other was not 
adapted to the climate. In 1851, a wild Peruvian also 
failed—and seven out of eight Chilians from Panama did 
the same. The eighth Chilian produced the “ Rough Purple 
Chili,” a hardy tuber, the seed of which grew the “Garnet 
Chili,” which in turn produced the famous Bresee’s “Early 
Rose.” In 1852 he grew a potato from the market of Callao, 
Peru; one from the Valparaiso market, and a third one, 
dug up wild a mile from Valparaiso: these three were all 
too late in maturing. These 14 tubers were ol 12 sorts, and 
only one produced a hardy and valuable potato. Mr. Good¬ 
rich advises that “ to make this mode of restoring the 
potato available, varieties should be sought by one well 
acquainted with our climate and the length of our seasons; 
and only such sorts should be selected in South America, 
as are capable of maturing in our short seasons, and as have 
there the best reputation for hardiness.” 
Mr. Goodrich’s most hardy seedlings, were the “ Rough 
Purple Chili” “Garnet Chili,” “Pale Blush Pink-eye,” 
and “ Pink-eye Rusty-coatand, next to them, were his 
“ Cuzco” “ Central City” “ Now-kidney,” and “ Copper 
Mine.” Like the extinct Mercer Potato of New York, 
these belonged to a former generation, and others have 
risen and deteriorated since. The “perfection” period of 
potato life is only a few years after its production : then 
follow deterioration in size and quality, and, later in an 
unfavorable season, disease of plant and tuber. In some 
localities these changes occur much earlier than in others. 
To secure hardiness and good quality I recommend the 
plan that produced the Early Rose: plant a wild and 
domesticated potato near each other; fertilize the flowers 
by hand, so as to mix the seed ; plant and cultivate the 
seeds produced, and hope for an Ideal potato. [The great 
trouble—and one that is constantly growing greater—is to 
find pollen. Eds.] 
The “ Early Rose” never had an equal in a predecessor, 
and being a fine, mealy summer variety, created quite an 
excitement at its appearance, as shown by the fabulous 
prices paid for seed-stock, viz., $20 per peck, $3 per pound, 
and $2 for a 5-ounce tuber, or at the rate of $384 for a 
bushel. The same plan of production ought be followed 
out again and there is no reason why an equally good re¬ 
sult should not be attained, and possibly a better one, with 
Northern wild stock as one of the parents, and a hardy 
domesticated one as the other. Recent advices lead 
me to believe that wild potatoes can be dug up in the 
whole chain of countries from Washington Territory, 
down to Patagonia; so there is field enough for varieties 
in the wild kinds that may be tested. 
