The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-06-25
The Faults Found with EnsiIage.
SECOND ARTICLE.

rank odors arising from ensilage, have
given rise to a great deal of complaint on
the part of its opponents. A man will
get up from hearty meal of Limburger
cheese and sour.crout, and complacently
sit down to write a scathing article upon
the Embellishments of acid and strong
smelling cow-fodder. We don't eat such
things oursef, but we do not think them
necessarily unwholesome. All the food
(however sweet when eaten) which hui
man beings take into their stomachs,
becomes acid and mal-odorous after being
a little while there. Any one who has
been much about a slaughter-house, or has
had the fun of cleaning tripe, knows
that the contents of the stomachs of COWS
fed upon the best grass, hay and grain are
as sour, and smell as badly, as the worst
ensilage, to say the least.
Nevertheless, experience has proved that
corn-ensilsge can be made so as to be al
most entirely free from acidity, and of an
agreeable smell. We should prefer, if we
were dairying, that ours should be Of this
character, for we like to be on the safe
side. But as some farmers are careless,
and let their hay spoil, and their corn
fodder and grain become mouldy, or
musty, it is not surprising that many of
them, experimenting for the first time
with new way of preserving forage,
should not succeed in getting it perfectly
sweet. Yet we are sure that the corn
ensilage on farms in New England will
average as free from decay and the pres.
ence of "germs as the corn.fodder.
Professor Miles, who has had charge of
the silos and their filling at the Massa-
chusetts Agricultural College, believes
that the secret of having sweet ensilage
is not to fill the silo too fast. Captain
Gilbert Morton of Essex, one of the most
experienced ensilagists in Vermont, claims
to have found out the same thing some
time ago. The idea is, to allow enough
heat to get up to kill all ferment germs,
and then put on, the weights. The heat
soon goes down, and the ensilage keeps
without souring, or becoming in any way
offensive.
We are satisfied that the most perfect
air-tighting, after the silo is covered, gives
the best results. This is secured first by
the proper construction of the silo, and
second by well-ftted and heavily
weighted covering. Experience seems to
show that the planks used for covering
should be of some resinous wood, and
hemlock is said to be the best. Hard
wood appears to cause moulding. We
are sure that not one in ten Of the wooden
silos are alright, or anything like it. II
is from such silos that we see the worst.
looking, the sourest, and most ill-smelling
ensilage but bad as it may be, it il
almost always well eaten by the cows
This is, in some aspects, very unfortunate
If the COWS would reject it, the careless
farmers would be much more likely te
put in better silos.
According to most reports, corn-ensilagt
keeps sweeter, under all circumstances
than any green feed that has been tested
This is to be expected, especially in re
gard to smell, as heterogeneous substances
give off the worst odors in fermentation
and, as we said in our former article OF
the subject, corn is the least nitrogenou
of all our feeding materials. We hsv'
been favored with letter from an En-
glish farmer, dated "Illingworth, Marcel
81, 1884," in which the writer says:
"My silo was made last May, and con
sists OF large air-tight tank forty.eigh
feet long, twelve feet broad, and twent,
feet deep. Five feet of this is below
ground, seven feet brick work, and eigh
feet boards-the whole to the top of tn
brick work being plastered with cement
to make it air and water-tight. At tn
bottom is q small tank three feet by tw'
feet, six inches deep, to catch the Gqui'
which flows from the ensilage; from thi
small tank an iron pipe runs to the SUI
face, where pump is fixed for pumping
up the liquid, of which we have got dur
ing the autumn hundreds of gallons
This liquid is said to be valuable for feed
ing pigs. The process of storing ensi
lage is as follows: We cut an acre of hay
grass in the evening. The following
morning we begin leading it in by 81:
o'clock. We load the grass on to sleigh
with forks and lead it straight to the silc
throw it in, spread it well and tread
down; we get finished by about noon an
leave it uncovered until the followin
: morning, or on Saturday until Monda
, morning. When all the grass is got i
we cover with boards, and weight it wit
blocks of stones five hundred weigh
each. 1t requires about one hundred ant
fifty pounds to the square foot. Whe
: we cut it in winter we remove row O
two of weights and few boards and Gu
across the silo, and throw the ensilage on
with a fork-about as much as we nee
use in q day at once. l think the pr6ces
is much better in every way than maxim
I the grass into hay. The cattle give
much greater supply of milk, and that {
a much richer quality than from hay
: cattle feed faster, and about one-half MOI
t cattle can be kept on the same acreag
= during the winter months. The Gait
dung about the same as they do durin
summer. The only objection l know