The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-10-18

1t is as superior to the original corn
stalks as leavened is to unleavened
bread.
1t is wonderful how our farmers, by
their hit-or miss philosophy, have real
zed the proper conditions of this en-
silage fermentation process. Still, they
could have saved much money and time
if they had taken a proper organic
chemist into their confidence at the
start. Perhaps he was not at hand, or
was too busy with other experiments
so the farmers have got there by simply
trying it on. They know now that the
silo should be strongly built, as above
described, of wood or non conductors
of heat, tight, we'll covered, and large
enough to hold good batch of the
cornstalk dough, cut pretty fine (half
an inch }, packed pretty close, and clos.
ed or covered on top, so as to keep
warm, but not too warm that it should
be high in the middle and we'll packed
on the sides, SO as not to sink away from
the walls and get cooled there, and so
give chance for the vinegar, or putre-
faction microbes, to get in ; aud should
be we'll covered "a foot or more deep,
but not pressed, on the top by dry hay
or straw that will let gases, &C., pass
out, but also keep out microbes, and so
preserve the bread thus leaUened sweet
and sound and fresh. In this state it
will keep for years. 1t should be fed
out by cutting it on slant, so that the
exposed surface can be covered as the
top is covered, or by tar paper, or other
microbe excluding substances.
These are the conditions of a sue
cessful silo, the last great gift of the
7orula to mankind, and almost as great
as bread itself, for it is bread to domes.
tic animals.
This microbe chemistry clears up the
cider and wine or alcohol mystery,
which explanation is also of great i'm
portance to the farmer and to every
body. All the alcohol in the world
comes from what is left over or excret-
ed by this microbe when he eats the
glucose and breathes eff the carbonic
acid as above stated. In bread this
alcohol and gas is volatilized making,
and in the silo it also mostly and grad
ually passes off with the gas from the
heat and pressure and want Of water,
when the microbe has finished eating
the sugar and is killed by the heat and
accumulating alcohol. But with the
moisture some OF the alcohol will
always remain.
But when the microbe makes fer
mentation in grape or apple juice or
any other liquid containing glucose,
then the alcohol is retained in the
liquor by its great affinity for water,
and it and the gas pass off gradually
when exposed, and thus make the
effervescence and the prickling sensa-
ton SO relished by topers. When the
alcohol is thus formed in the liquid to
the extent of fifteen per cent, it kills
the microbe excreting it, for 1t is a
deadly poison to eaery hving thing. The
wine or cider is then said to be made,
and will keep without fermentation
unless more glucose and water be in
some way added to it. All wines, elders
beers and fcrmentcd liquors are made,
in substance, in this way. If they are
boiled or heated and exposed, this al.
cohol will fly of, but if enclosed, the
alcohol may be caught and cooled or
distilled, as by "worm," and so give
US distilled liquors-viz,, brandy, whis.
key, gin, &c,-which have about fifty
per cent of alcohol. But owing to the
affinity of alcohol for water, even by
repeated Installations it can never be
entirely freed from 1.-THE so called
pure alcohol having from one to ten per
cent of water. Now, the thing to be
carefully noted about alcohol is, that it
is a substance left and cast out by the
living process of the yeast cell, and is
so much matter run down into ashes, as
it were, so that no living thing can eat
or assimllate it again. It contains no
nitrogen, as protoplasm and all living
things do, and it is in table chemical
equilibrium, so that it cannot be broken
up1o any extent by being exposed to
living processes. Therefore, it is
dead, acrid, irritant poison of the very
worst kind, and kills every living cell
it covers at once.
1t is thus excellent for preserving
anatomical specimens, for no living
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