Ensilage of green crops : from the French of Auguste Goffart : with the latest facts connected with this system

Front matter

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Ensilage of Greei Crops,

FROM THE FRENCH OF AUGUSTE GOFFART.

Chapter I

ADVANTAGES TO BE DERIVED FROM THE PRESERVATION OF GREEN FODDER BY ENSILAGE, OVER THE METHOD OF PRESERVATION BY DRYING.

If there is one fact recognized by all agriculturists, it is that a certain quantity of grass, which, consumed in a green state represents an ascertained nutritive value, loses a considerable portion of that value in passing into the state of hay intended for the winter sustenance of animals.

The cow, which gives us in summer, while feeding on green grass, such excellent milk, and butter of such agreeable color and flavor, furnishes us. in winter, when she eats the same grass converted into hay, an inferior quality of milk, and pale, insipid butter. What modifications has this grass undergone in changing to hay? These modifications are numerous. It is sufficient to cross a meadow at the time when the new-mown grass is undergoing desiccation in order to recognize that it is losing an enormous quantity of its substance that exhales in the air in agreeable odors, but which, if they remained in the plant, would serve as a condiment, facilitating digestion and assimilation.

All stock-raisers, those of Sologne especially, know how rapidly our young cattle increase in weight in summer on green pasture, which, converted into hay and devoted to their

6 OULTUKE AND ENSILAGE OF MAIZE.

nourishment in winter, scarcely keeps them in statu quo ; hay given judiciously does not always prevent them from becoming lean.

Therefore the sole fact of desiccation accomplished by fine weather, in the best conditions, causes the loss of a considerable part of essential substance. This loss, added to the physical modifications which render mastication and digestion of the hay more difficult than of the grass, and consequently assimilation less complete, merits the most serious attention on the part of those who are interested in agricultural affairs.

The losses which I have mentioned are far from being all that result from our method of transforming grass into hay.

Rains, ofttimes prolonged, coming upon the harvest, the absence of sufficient heat in autumn, are powerful causes of deterioration of hay.

What agriculturist has not seen a hundred times his hay, injured by rain, deprived of its richest and most assimilative elements'? The rain prolonged, the hay is invaded by a species of nauseous rot, which disgusts cattle and causes formidable maladies when hunger forces them to eat it. If these things occur to the common fodder crops — clover, lucern, sainfoin, etc. — what would happen to the fodder crops of high growth and great yield, such as maize and sorgho? Never in our temperate climate could we obtain for these a sufficient desiccation by the sun.

These are the grave inconveniences which from time immemorial have induced agriculturists to seek some new method of preservation for then- fodder. It is nearly a century since the German, Klapmayer, called the attention of the agricultural world to his system of conversion of grass into hay, and which still bears his name — " Brown hay, Klapmayer method." This method, which made a great noise at the time of its appearance, has had its seasons of popularity. It has been successively taken up, abandoned, again taken up ; but it has in fact never been firmly implanted into agricultural practice. For my part, at the commencement of my agricultural career, more than thirty years ago, I pursued some experiments perseveringly through two campaigns, in which I followed faithfully the directions of Klapmayer. How many times have I arisen in the middle of the night, with one of my workmen, in order to satisfy myself, thermometer in hand, that my grass, gathered in cocks larger or smaller, did not exceed the degree of heat prescribed as the extreme limit to insure excellent preservation. I never succeeded, and I doubt if any other persons have been any more fortunate.

A few years later I gave my attention to the culture of maize, and I began to seek for it a system of preservation by ensilage. I have therein entirely succeeded, but only after thousands of experiments, which have continued not less than a quarter of a century. It is that all agriculturists may profit by the experience acquired, often at my cost, upon this important subject, that I have written this Manual.

LANDS SUITABLE TO THE PRODUCTION OF MAIZE.

I do not pretend that all soil is adapted to a profitable culture of maize. There are certain indispensable conditions of the physical, hygrometric and chemical state of the soil, the absence of which will render impossible the profitable culture of this fodder crop ; but in most instances it will answer to increase, for the first two crops, the manuring and dressing, in order to obtain a large production, which will give a sort of impetus to the new culture, and will be the point of departure of a most happy transformation. As in a machine, however well constructed, it is necessary to overcome at first the force of inertia.

Note. — A hectare is about 2%. acres. A kilogramme is about 2\ lb. avoirdupoise.

At Burtin rny soil possesses some qualities very favorable for this culture, but for four years my processes left much to be desired, and within two years I have made more progress than I had obtained during twenty years preceding. The large quantity of maize that the increase of this culture and my perfected processes have placed every year at my disposal has permitted me to double the number of my stock ; then each animal which formerly produced 13,000 kilogrammes of dung has produced, since it has been better nourished, nearly 20,000 kilogrammes. Therefore, if my maize requires abundant manuring it causes a production of manure more than sufficient. In fact, a hectare of maize, properly treated and successfully preserved, yields a product of more that 50,000 kiloorammes of manure, and absorbs hardly one-third of this quantity. It is necessary to add that each week I spread upon my dung-heaps 100 kilogrammes of phosphate. This practice gives excellent results, above all in Sologne, where our soil, naturally very poor in phosphoric acid, requires that we should furnish it in every possible form. Some foreboding people predicted four years ago that I would lose all my stock if I continued to feed them exclusively on maize throughout the year. I have continued to do so, and all my animals enjoy excellent health, without even a shadow of a malady. One of the most valuable properties of maize is the power of self succession almost indefinite. Some of my finest maize occupies a field which, during the past eighteen years, has borne fourteen harvests of that plant without giving any signs of weariness ; on the contrary, the later yield is better than the former. All the requirement is to give to the land suitable manuring, restoring each year the equivalent of that which is taken off. Potash is the predominating component of maize. Animals consuming it assimilate very little potash, and the dung-heap restores to the soil nearly all of it that has been removed in the crop. Another plant, much cultivated in Sologne, the hemp, possesses also the property of eternalizing itself upon the same field. Each farm has its hemp field, which, for centuries, occupies the same ground.

The soil which is best adapted to the culture of maize is of medium consistency, rather light than heavy, moist without being wet, rich in alluvial matter, and therefore of a dark color. It is remarkable that our poor Sologne possesses an abundance of this kind of land, as if Heaven had wished to give it some sort of compensation for all its other inferiorities. Heavy soil is equally well adapted to produce very fine maize, but requires more labor; for it is necessary to bring it to a state of fine pulverization, at the risk of the seed not sprouting, which is always difficult in compact earth. In general terms, maize will succeed wherever beets do well, with the same conditions as to manuring and top-dressing. But maize cannot, of course, have the pretension to compete with advantage against such a rival ; above all, in the rich countries where for so long a time it has been cultivated as a plant that is both valuable in commerce (sugar) and for fodder. In those parts maize can only make for itself a modest place, as a means of varying a little the food of our animals.

But in those countries, such as the South of France and Algeria, where the excessive heat causes the beet to fail, there maize will render immense service. Preserved by ensilage, it will assure at all times to the cattle sufficient food, instead of those alternations of abundance and scarcity which often have such sorrowful results.

METHODS OF CULTURE.

Formerly I planted my maize in ridges, which has been the sole method practiced for a long time in the fields of our Sologne. The ridge in shallow soil but little dug up is an excellent method for protecting the fall seeding against the wet, so destructive in winter. But as a spring crop it is necessary to give up the ridges entirely, and to replace them by beds more or less extensive. These, by yielding less evaporation, provide better than the ridge against the dryness of summer.. Another motive, more serious, pleads also in favor of beds. When well compressed by a heavy roller, they protect the seed, more effectually than the ridge, against one of the most to be dreaded plagues of this culture. At the moment when the little shoot makes its appearance out of the earth, the birds come in crowds, in order to pull up and eat the grain which adheres to and comes out of the soil with it, especially when the soil is light, as it commonly is in Sologne. I have lost several times a third, and sometimes a half, of my maize, devoured thus at the birth, by crows, pies, and pigeons, which swarm in our fields. A good rolling of my beds with a heavy stone roller is an effective preservative against the danger which I have mentioned. When the earth has been well jacked down by the roller, the bird that pulls up the shoot of maize finds that it breaks off near the ground without being followed by the grain, which is all that has any value to him. Deceived in his hope, the bird gives up very quickly an ungrateful labor which refuses him the reward upon which he had reckoned. Besides this, the roller is an instrument of security for our light soil. It strengthens the hold of the plant upon the soil, and it has saved, twenty times, my crops that were in danger by being laid bare.

The use of the seeding machine is the surest and least

Note. — For Iron Rollers, see List.

costly method. It economizes the seed, which often costs so dear, and it gives regular and equal lines, which render the after cultivation very easy. For want of a machine, I have obtained very good results in distributing the seed by hand, by women, who follow the laborer and only put the seed in every second furrow. I obtained thus wider rows, but regularly spaced and easily cultivated.

Note. — The translator supposes that the gang-plow is used in this case. The French plow of this kind excelled even our American plows at the Paris Exposition, and is to be introduced into this country. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to comparison between drilled and broadcast sowing, which is omitted as valueless to the American farmer. The mechanical genius of the United States and Canada, fostered by the Patent Office and rewarded by the immense demand for its results, has settled this question to the great relief of the arms and backs of the laborers.

YIELD OF MAIZE.

Thanks to the care that I have specified, I obtain from my maize an enormous yield. In the past five years the minimum has been 75,000 kilogrammes per hectare, and the maximum 415,000. The average yield has been 90,000 kilogrammes per hectare.

Note.— About 40 tons to the acre.

FOOD VALUE OF MAIZE.

It is only by experience that we can solve the question of the alimentary value of maize. I can assert, however, that at my home at Burtin, in the way in which I prepare it, maize with one-tenth of its weight of oat straw maintains my

12 CULTURE AND ENSILAGE OE MAIZE.

animals in perfect condition. It would be, I confess, going too far to say that maize alone has the faculty of making very fat animals for fairs, or for high quality butcher stalls. Cows which are not being milked quickly take a condition entirely satisfactory to our country butchers, who are, as a class, less exacting than those of the city. But for perfect fattening it is necessary to add other aliments to the regular ration, such as beet-pulp. I have tried the experiment of fattening five animals with my preserved maize, and an addition in the commencement of four kilogrammes per day of oilcake. They became fat with surprising rapidity. At this time seventj^- three horned animals live only upon maize and straw on my farms at Burtin and Gouillon, and my stables are always open to visiting farmers. Maize poorly preserved is a poor nutriment for animals, and may even become a poison for them. We should not lose sight of the fact that in the condition of the preserved fodder there are an infinite number of degrees to which the nutritive value corresponds ; the method of cutting, the chemical modifications to which it is subjected, cause it to vary from single to double the nutritive power.

Says one person to me, " I can use but one-half maize in my rations; otherwise my beasts would perish." Another says, "One-third is the maximum quantity that my beasts can stand in their rations." Another pretends that a quarter is hardly endurable. Gentlemen, only make good ensilages, and all will change with you, as it did with me. The ensilages of my first attempts were no better than yours. Little by little I have made them better, and therefore better supported my animals — that is the whole question. My much regretted relative, Louis Pilat, who held for many years the first rank in the art of fattening sheep, when pressed by me to divulge his secret, replied, " My secret: I have none ; it is only a question of fare. Induce the animals to eat abundantly by a large choice, variety, and good preparation of food ; that is all there is to it."

Now is maize by itself a rich food ? Evidently not. Without the analyses more or less exact that have been published, one fact proves its lack of richness in nutritive principles, and that is the large quantity that animals eat in order to keep them in good condition. This fact I have recognized and published twenty times. No one would pretend that a kilogramme of maize could be made to take the place of a kilogramme of lucern, clover, or French grass (sainfoin) ; but by supplying in quantity what it lacks in richness, we can maintain our animals by maize as well as by the richest grasses. The question is to compare the selling value, or rather the price that returns from the two kinds of fodder, and to ascertain if twice the quantity, or even thrice, does not cost less than the products that it replaces. To me, the affirmative is not in doubt. The question is simpler when we apply it to comitries, too numerous indeed, which, like Sologne, produce good crops of maize, but are rebellious to the culture of rich fodder, lucern, sainfoin, etc. In such places the cultivator has no choice ; he has only to avail himself of the benefits of maize, and he is spared all embarrassment. One important point that a long practice has put for me beyond doubt is that the same green maize taken nourishes better, the weight being equal, when it is cut short than when it is fed whole, and that its nutritive power increases when it has been softened by lying several weeks in a silo, then undergoing a light commencement of alcoholic fermentation a few hours before being fed out. I estimate that with young animals acclimated, the increase of weight at eighty centimes per kilogramme (7 cents per lb.) will pay upon an average about 20 francs per thousand kilogrammes of preserved maize (about $3.50 per ton). I consider this price as so nearly regular that I adopt it as a point of departure when I wish to reckon up my farming operations.

Fattening by means of preserved maize, with an addition of cake of arachide (earth-nuts) has given me excellent results. I have fattened this winter eight animals from my stables which I wished to part with on account of old age, sterility, deformity, under size, or mischievous disposition. Their value on foot before fattening was 55 centimes per kilogramme. They sold for 70 centimes per kilogramme ; there was an increase of weight of 447 kilogrammes, and in value 845 francs 25 centimes. These animals consumed during their fattening, averaging 58 days, 2935 kilogrammes of oilcake, costing 10 centimes per kilogramme, or a total of 293 francs 50 centimes. The maize therefore paid me about 45 francs per 1,000 kilogrammes, which is indeed a high price, better than one could obtain either by milk, the increase of young animals, or other products of the stables. Preserved maize has also the merit of exciting to its highest point the appetite for oilcake, which is at first repugnant, especially at the commencement, if it is fed alone, without being mixed with maize, which has so much attraction for them. A third experience, viz., the nutritive value of maize in view of the raising of sucking calves, resulted in paying me 40 francs per 1,000 kilogrammes of maize.

Numerous experiments will be necessary in order to settle these questions. I have wished simply to indicate them and to put them in some sort of order before recommencing them. The advantages that I have enumerated are not the only ones that belong to this culture. These plants have large and numerous leaves which exercise a happy influence upon the health of the country where they are cultivated.

They absorb miasms which arise from the earth at the critical moment in certain countries where the crops of grain and fodder have just been removed. The maize in full vegetation at that moment replaces, as an absorbent, the other vegetation. Planted in gardens near habitations they play at first a hygienic role ; then gathered and dried, if need be near the hearth, and the stalks cut in pieces of eight to ten centimetres long, placed in a close vessel filled with warm water, they quickly produce an agreeable drink much appreciated by workingmen.

Note. — Five centimes make a cent. A franc is l&nr cents.

PROCESSES BY WHICH I HAVE SUCCEEDED IN ASSURING THE PRESERVATION OF GREEN MAIZE FOR AN INDE- FINITE TIME.

The end to be attained is to prevent all kinds of fermentation before and after ensilage ; for the way to avoid bad fermentation is to not permit any. It is by not having discovered sooner this fundamental principle that so many seekers like myself have lost so many years in barren experiences. We wished to preserve maize by fermentation ; that is to say, we turned our backs on the solution of the problem. Fermentation preserves nothing. On the contrary, it is always a preliminary step towards a decomposition more or less putrid, towards a real destruction. I have had this experience a thousand times : when my maize had contracted in my imperfect silos alcoholic fermentation, I hastened to have it eaten up as soon as possible rather than to see it pass to acetic fermentation, and soon after to lactic or putrid fermentation. These experiences, so often repeated and always fruitless, had finally discouraged me. For a long time I had resigned myself to only require from my silos a temporary preservation of a few weeks at the most ; that is to say, the time that lapsed between the ensilage and the appearance of putrid fermentation. I had, however, from that time, at my disposal all the elements of a complete success. In 1853 I had established at Burtin a complete factory for preserving — a powerful feed-cutter from England, which has admirably performed for me, for more than twenty years ; a hydraulic power, eight-horse, to work the feed-cutter ; then at two steps from the feed-cutter, four silos, hollowed in the ground, plastered with Portland cement, and perfectly water-tight.

I cut at that time my maize in pieces of three to four centimetres long; I mixed a certain proportion of short straw (always too much), and I filled successively my silos by pressing down the layers of the mixture by one, and sometimes several persons treading upon it. After this pressing down with great pains, I placed on the top a layer of short straw about ten centimetres long, and above all a layer of loam, beaten with care, in order to prevent all contact between the ensilaged maize and the air outside. During the following days I stopped up the fissures which appeared on the surface. When I proceeded, several weeks later, to open the silo, I found invariably a vacuum of several centimetres between the maize and the superincumbent clay. Notwithstanding the force of the compression that was produced during the ensilage, the maize had undergone another settling, and its upper part presented an alteration which would communicate rapidly to the lower layers. In order to avoid this result I had no other means than to feed it out as quickly as possible. Later I abandoned the clay as a covering for my silos. Immediately after having pressed in my mixture of cut maize and straw, I applied above all a covering of plank fitting exactly the opening of the silo, and descending with the maize as it shrunk down. This simple change produced a perceptible amendment, but it was quite insufficient still. The alteration was but little retarded, but I was on the right track. To-day I still use the same silos, and I obtain a preservation indefinite , and complete. In what then have I modified my processes ? Instead of cutting my maize in pieces of three or four centimetres in length, I cut them one centimetre only. Instead of mixing a quarter and sometimes a third in weight of short straw, I never exceed the proportion of one-tenth, and oftener I bury the maize without any mixture. Finally, and here is the principal difference : I pile on the cover of my silo when it is filled, four or five hundred kilogrammes of stones or blocks of wood per square metre of surface. By my first processes I obtained only a temporary and incomplete preservation ; with my last I obtained a preservation indefinite and absolute. How have these three simple modifications led to such marvellous results! To explain this will be the object of the following chapters.

Note.— A centimetre is about -fc inch.

HOW THE MAIZE SHOULD BE CUT.

Agriculture does not generally appreciate at its full value the advantages that can be derived from the cutting of fodder as affecting the nourishment of cattle. Even besides the preparation for ensilage, these advantages are considerable. The feed-cutter with its cutting-knives and the fluted cylinders which precede them, and which act in some sort as molars, work certainly better and more economically than the jaws of our animals, especially when it is moved by water, by steam, or by horse-power. (I do not speak of the arms of men, which have become too scarce, and therefore too dear for that service.) The labor of mastication is an expenditure of force which the animal does not perform gratuitously. I leave to our skillful professors of mechanics the care of determining scientifically the effort that animals make in grinding the different food that is presented, and which proportionately requires an addition to its ration in order to represent that expenditure. I have seen in former times in my stables, when I caused my beasts to eat maize uncut, that they were fatigued by their incessant efforts to tear to pieces the large stalks, and were so exhausted as to fail to profit as they have done since by this excellent food when presented in a form more favorable for its absorption. Imagine two men obliged to support themselves, one upon the wheat in grain, and the other upon the same quantity reduced to flour. You may be sure that these two men would not profit equally from their respective food, which, however, is chemically the same.

The same maize produces food very different in its effect, according to whether it has been only cut, or cut and softened by the commencement of fermentation, or offered to the animals in whole stalks more or less dry. The fineness to which I cut my maize at the moment of ensilation is extremely important in view of good preservation. Cut in disks of only one centimetre thick, the maize packs better in the silo, it occupies less space, and takes the form and consistency of a species of pulp, leaving in its mass the least possible amount of air. In proportion as the length is increased, the preservation becomes less perfect, and finishes by being entirely defective. Last year a cultivator of the valley of the Loire, took from me the dimensions of my elliptic silo, and reproduced it exactly on his own farm. He filled it in the autumn, and when he opened it during the winter, he took out a poorly preserved product, which his beasts only eat with repugnance. Greatly disappointed, he brought to me a sample of his maize that he had cut in lengths of five to six centimetres, instead of one or two at most, as I had advised him. I recognized at once the cause of his failure, and asked him why, contrary to my, advice, he had cut it so long. He replied, " I was not able to procure a steam engine which I expected to use, and I had to use a horse-power ; the work did not get along fast enough, and in order to hasten it, I decided to cut it in such long pieces." He was surprised at the excellent preservation of the maize at

Burtin, and he earned home a hundred kilogrammes ; his cattle were thus enabled to appreciate the difference. I cite this fact because it contains a valuable lesson.

PROPER PROPORTION OF STRAW.

At the beginning of my ensilages I had as principal resource for the sustenance of my stock a great quantity of wheat, oat, and rye straw, etc. In order to induce my cattle to eat it, I mixed all that I could with my maize and my green cut rye, but I was not slow to notice that this mixture kept much less time as the proportion of straw was greater. A fiftieth in volume, or a tenth in weight, was the maximum of what the maize could carry without being exposed to an early alteration ; when I increased this quantity, the time that it kept always diminished, and at last did not exceed fortyeight hours. I attribute this to the fact that the straw, being very dry, absorbs from the maize too much of its water. The moist condition of the ensilages, instead of being a cause of deterioration, is, on the contrary, to a certain extent, indispensable to the good preservation of the whole matter.

Maize in its normal condition contains about eighty-five per cent, of water ; when the addition of dry straw has caused the mixture to decline to an average holding less than seventy-five per cent, the good preservation is much compromised, and quickly becomes impossible if we try to go below it. Besides the too great dehydratation that the presence of the straw may cause, it also offers another serious inconvenience, especially rye straw. This straw when cut forms a great quantity of little tubes, the envelopes of which resist decomposition for a long time ; these tubes inclose an appreciable quantity of air, which is the most dangerous enemy of ensilage. Oat straw, or others of softer texture, are less dangerous in this respect than rye straw. While I used at first the short straw from my threshing, always troublesome on account of the amount of room that it occupies, henceforth I shall bury my fodder almost without any mixture. Sometimes, however, it is well to mix short straw with maize without passing suitable limits. Such a case presented itself at Burtin, in the autumn of 1876. When maize has been cut before the frost, and arrives in good condition to the cutting-machine and then to the silo, it does not yield its water easily, even when it is submitted to a considerable pressure. But it is not the same when this fodder is too old, and has been exposed to the rains and frosts at the end of autumn.

On one occasion, in October, 1876, I found, for lack of sufficient silos, that it was impossible to bury all my crop of maize. I was obliged to improvise a new silo, in an old building, in order to place the surplus, and this ensilage was not completed until the first days of December.

The stalks, touched by frost, had become very soft and weak. The cutting was difficult, but, most unfortunate of all, the layer of cut maize had scarcely attained in the silo two metres of thickness, when, by reason of the pressure upon the first layer, the juice began to run out freely through the opening, and this discharge continued for several days. This was a serious loss, which I could have avoided by mixing some cut straw with the overripe maize. Except in this case, my maize has never lost in this way any of its water ; at the disinterment the bottoms of my silos have always been found nearly dry, barely moist.