The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-10-18
The Farm,
Farmers, Gardners, HoYticuiturists,
Dairy and Stockmen are requested to
Write for this Department.
BREAD, ENsILAGE AND CIDER
How the Yeast Animal Makes En-
sllage.

Country Gentleman-My neighbor.
farmer Joseph D. Sawyer, while VI
watched his Ross cutter and carrier FL.
his silo like a charm, made me promise
to do nothing else until l sent you an
account Of the ensilage chemistry,
which he says has been of constant use
and great delight to him. So here it
is, as concisely as possible.
We owe our bread, our ensilage and
cider to the same little microscopic
microbe, the yeast animal, wrongly call
ed in the old books "yeast plant" The
origin, nature, doings and results of
this little fellow are OF the most alb
sorbiug interest to US. We used to say
that the lion was king of animals, but
the microscope shows US that the mi
crobe is king and of all the microbes
the yeast animal is perhaps the most
important to the farmer, and therefore
to mankind. For his increase and
growth is the cause of Fermentation, a
process most wonderful in its action
and results, OF which ensilage is the
last, and one of the most useful. Fer
mentation is caused by the sudden in
crease by millions on millions of this
little animal cell, or microbe, visible
only under the microscope, called the
yeast cell, or the Toruld cerevisioe,
which is Latin for the strings or twists
that appear in cereal ferments, that is
those made from corn or grain, the gifts
of the old goddess Ceres. This little
fellow lives and multipies enormously
by feeding npon and decomposing fruit
grain, malt, grape or corn sugar-that
is, glucose &C.. H12, Oc) thus: He takes
half of tho glucose as food, viz,
(Cs. liz. o. the other half he partly
breathes off or sets free, as carbonic acid
gas (C1, o. and the rest he leaves or
cxcretes as alcohol (C2, He O1). This
is the whole story in a nuts hell, and no
farmer should ever forget it. From this
come all the bread, cider, wine and all
the cnsiloye in the world. Bread is
made by putting these microbes, which
are in the yeast-cake, into the dough or
starch-sugar of grains. A penny
yeast cake, as dry as chip, contains at
leas. 1000, 900 of them. In the warm
dough, these will increase to say 14O,-
100000 10 an hour! This increase and
their minute carbonic acid gas.breaths
and alcohol will make that dough as
eight as feather" and ready for the
oven. In the oven the heat drives off
(volatilizes) the carbonic acid gas and
the alcohol. The result is that we have
from the hands of the housewife, as the
gift of this little fellow, light and
wholesome Gnstead Of unleavened, in
digestible) bread, but free from alcohol.
While this is done by the wife in
the house to feed her family, the hus-
band should do much the same to feed
the animals Of his farm. Just outside
Of his feeding barn or stables let him
build silo, strongly and with wood, on
top Of the ground, and connect it with
his stables by wheelbarrow covered
passage way. This silo should be filed
with corn stalks or some sweet, succu-
lent vegetation cut fine, say corn stalks
when the ears are sugary and just be-
ginning to glaze. The filing should
be from two to four feet at time, every
two or three days. This little yeast
microbe will show his work as soon as
the first layer is we'll troiden down.
The fermentation will soon raise the
heat to 1859 or 1869. and the fumes of
carbonic acid, and finally of alcohol,
will be unmistakable. By the time the
first layer is we'll cooked, the next will
90 on and be trodden down and cooked
in its turn, and so on till the silo is
filled. Then cover with hay or straw,
cut if convenient, and you have the
leavened but unbaked cornstalk or veg
etable bread for the cattle; just as the
wife has the -four bread from the corn
grains, which she takes one step furth-
er and ripens by baking, instead of let
ting it ripen by enclosing and covering,
as in silo.
You do not, and need not, put yeast
cake into the silo, for this microbe is
pretty much everywhere. We live in
a world of microbes-fermentive, vim
egar making. putrefactive, disease
causing and other. There is no escape
from them they beat us and eat us all
in the end. They dry up and are, or
seem to be, dead, but little warmth
and moisture sets them alive and feed