New York Agricultural Experiment Station. 
73 
der given to the cows. It is an interesting fact, and confirms Dr. Fos- 
ter's experience, that, before this last cutting was gone, all of the cows 
ate prickly comfrey with a relish, and four of them voraciously. The 
last cutting of fodder was given the cows as drawn from the plat, 
without addition of salt or meal. 
Ensilage. 
During the summer of 1887, the station received from Mr. James 
Wood of Mt. Kisco, Westchester county, N. Y., an apparatus imported 
from England, which is used there for the purpose of compressing 
open air silos. This instrument, which is in many respects like that 
used in compressing hay, is described as follows by the manufacturers. 
The description is accompanied by an illustration in the pamphlet 
which adds to its clearness: "The -foregoing illustration of an open air 
stack of ensilage under pressure, shows the arrangement of poles or 
bars under and across the top of the stack, and chains which are looped 
around the projecting ends of the poles or bars. The gear as shown is 
fully extended, and has a ring on the upper bar into which the hook 
on the lever fits. The lever is shown attached to the gear, and ready 
for pressing down; this lever is only hooked into the ring on the upper 
bar of the gear, and a bolt regulated by a spring lever attached to the 
handle of the lever passes through the forked ends of the lever and the 
lower perforated bar of the gear, keeping all fast while pressure is 
being applied. When the lever is first pressed downwards a spring 
pawl attached to the upper bar of the gear is forced out of its posi- 
tion — where it has been keeping the strain tight — but when the lever 
is fully pressed down this pawl is immediately forced into position 
again at the next hole in the bars by the action of the spring, thus 
keeping the pressure secure from hole to hole, and allowing the lever 
to be unhooked from the gear for use elsewhere at any time. The 
gear consists of parallel flat bars working in slats." 
On August twenty-fifth the construction of our silage stack in the 
open air was begun. Three stringers four by four inches were first 
laid level, with stones of good size placed beneath them to prevent 
sagging of the beams. Across these were placed two-inch planks, 
leaving spaces of a few inches between each. The area intended for 
the stack was placed at ten by ten feet. The stringers projected some 
distance beyond the area referred to, in order to allow the passage of 
the chains over them, and to furnish additional space if necessary for 
building out the stack. The foundation was begun on a very slight 
hillside, but not enough so to allow of a level placing of the stringers 
without digging slightly into the ground. This afterwards proved to 
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