The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1883-03-17
dhe 5armer.
HISTORY OF ENsILAGE.

The practice of enSllaGe Is very ancient.
1t is plain that it was known five centuries
before our era. The origin of the custom
was probably insecurity Husbandmen
dug water-tight cavities under their houses
and barns in order to store their produce
and keep it from marauders, heaping earth
or stones over the store, and so excluding
the air. In course of time they found
that these boards of grain were preserved
in sound state for a very long period.
Corn, VIC are told, was laid up i'll ear, and
kept for century. The onl y condition
was to protect the storage from air and
moisture. The practice was known and
adopted from Britain and Germany on the
north, to Africa on the south, Cappadocia
and the Caucasus on the cast. 1t is
mentioned by the poet Euripides, and des-
cribed by nearly all the Latin writers on
agriculture.
1t seems that NJ Goffart, of Sologne, in
France, published, in 1877, work on ensi-
lage. This was translated into English,
and published at New York in 1879. The
experience of the French agriculturists was
rapidly adopted in the New England
States, in New York and New jersey, even
in some of the other and more distant parts
of the American Union and in Canada. 1t
is now becoming general, and for sufficient
reasons. Before the translation and pub
LEGATION of NJ Gofart's book, experiments
of more or less successful character had
been made, notably by Mr., Mills, Of
Pompton, New jersey, who is supposed to
have been tbs first to introduce the prac-
tice of ensilage in America. NJ. Goffart
began the practice of ensilage i'll 1852, and
his work. is therefore the record of an ex-
perience extending over a quarter Of a
century.
There was good reason for adopting any
system which should save forage in the
Eastern States of America, and give stalled
cattle food which should be equally good
all the year round, and be unchanged-for
| presume change of food always involves
some distaste on the part of cattle, and
some loss, even if the new food may be as
nutritive as that which it displaces and
NAV cost no more. The sudden adoption
and rapid extension of ensilage in the East
of America are easily accounted for, by
reasons of climate, soil, and competition.
In the present year (June, 1882 a
Parliamentary Paper was distributed
among the members of both Houses, con-
tanning reports from divers Secretaries of
Legation, and among them one from Mr..
Drummond for the United States This
report contained description of two en-
silage farms in New Jersey, one belonging
to Mr. Havemeyer, at Mahwah the other
to,Mr Mills, of Pompton. [ determined
to see both, and had no difficulty, as Mr..
Havemeyer is intimate with my old and
valued friend, Mr.. David Wells, of Nor
WITCH, Conn, the shrewdest and most intel
ligent economist, and, [ need not add, free
trader in the United States. Mr.. Mills
resides about dozen miles from MIR. Have
meyer, and we drove on an afternoon to
Pomptor during my visit to the former
gentleman.
Mr.. Mills appears to have been the first
to introduce ensilage into the States, and
to have suggested the heavy weighing of
the fodder in silo. His farm and silOs are
those which are described at the greatest
length by Mr. Drummond. His expert
ments were made in 1876, as an attempt to
save crop of unripe corn, sown from seed
which could not, as he found, ripen in the
Northern States. He made several rough
sIos in gravel bank, put his corn In
whole. covered it with straw and planks,
and then heaped earth over it. When the
frost broke up in the following spring: he
opened his pits, found the fodder in good
preservation, got it out, and found his
horses liked it. He bought cows, and
found that they ate it greedily and throve
on it. Since this date he has regularly
carried on the practice. He has now two
pits, holding together six hundred tons.
unless there is some mistake in the account
This is the produce of thirteen acres OF
land-a prodigious yield, as it is over forty,
six tons per acre.
Ensilage has not been practised for more
than four years in America-h at all,
in fact. till after NJ Goffart's book was
translated and published in 1879. But it
has excited so much attention that in June
of the present year Mr.. Loring, the United
States Commissioner of Agriculture, issued
circular from his department in Wash
ington to number OF persons who were
known to practice it. The circular con.
tanned twenty-six questions of practical
kind. to which answers were invited. Over
ninety answers were received, and it may
be noted that among these are not to be
found the names of Messrs. Mills, Have
meyer, Wolcott, Abram Hewitt, Robinson
Remington, and others, who are convinced
of the merits of the system, and active In
carrying it out, The evidence given by
those who had tried the new system was
conclusive as to its importance and value
not only in New England, but to the
whole of the agricultural community
Most persons estimate it as enabling the
farmers to feed four cattle at the cost OF
two under the older system.-AcAlH'd"
MI00zi0p