MILLS' SYSTEM OF ENSILAGE.

BY

FRANCIS D. MOULTON,

PRESIDENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL DAIRY FAIR ASSOCIATION,

NEW YORK.

Many years ago I used to distribute tracts to the poor, the needy, and those supposed to be at least the ungodly, of what is now the wealthiest district of the City of New York. Where the poor are that I visited I do not know, but the lessons of that early time remain with me. Each tract I distributed was, I have no doubt, intended to be a short treatise on practical religion: but as I was stoned for this service one day near what was known as "Quality Row," in Forty-second street corner of Fifth Avenue, which old New Yorkers will remember for its absence of quality, I abandoned a work that I began with enthusiasm under the direction of my teachers of the Mount Pleasant Reformed Dutch Church, then located in Fiftieth street near Cato's road.

I saw much of want and misery in the days I speak of, and I could not help feeling, what I have ever since felt, that the bread of life I was appointed to carry around and give away, and often with sincere prayers in its behalf, was, on the whole, a hard and unsatisfactory and unnourishing crust. I have known many good men and good women, able and willing to relieve the sufferings of the poor: but I was led to believe through my own experience, confirmed by the observation of those I allude to, that it was not so much the meal of to-day and the coat for to-day that was wanted, as the way to earn both for to-morrow. I have since travelled much through the manufacturing and agricultural sections of this and other countries for business, pleasure and observation, and have not found, until within this month, what I believed in the end would prove to be a discovery in industry that would make living for the masses sure and cheap with accompanying comfort, education and enlightenment, to be followed with prosperity, enrichment, near neighborhood and good government, and so I propose to tell as briefly as possible of what I found and where I found it.

I found financially prosperous farming made easy; and I cannot do better just here than to quote, with reference to its value, the words of The New York Tribune, when the International Dairy Fair was in progress at the American Institute during December, 1878: "There is nothing of better import to the country than financially prosperous farming. It is money-making, without many of the evils which accompany some of the other methods of making money. It is cleanly, honest, and of all good influences."

I found financially prosperous farming made easy at Arrareek farm, in Pompton, New Jersey; and the statement of its owner, Mr. C. W. Mills, whom I have known for many years, will, I have no doubt, be as much of a surprise and delight, to all who read it, as it was to me. The statement was made to me Monday, April 4, 1881. It was that, during the Winter of 1880-81, he had kept one hundred and twenty horned cattle and twelve horses, and should keep them for seven months more, with half the ground feed that would have been necessary if feeding the best of hay instead of the GREEN FODDER, which was the product of thirteen acres of his farm. The two

pits, or silos, in which Mr. Mills preserved the green fodder, cost him about seven hundred dollars, and the fodder less than five hundred dollars; hay, to answer the same purpose, would have cost him seventy-five hundred dollars; so that, as the grain consumed in either case would have cost the same, the profit was about seven thousand dollars-not taking into account at all the extra price for milk, which was sold at a premium in New York because of its richness.

I walked with Mr. Mills over his farm. I do not want to say that I never saw a poorer one, but I do not think I ever did. I looked at the stock and they were in unusually fine condition-clear-eyed, fat, sleek, and lazy as pets. I tasted the milk and it was the best I ever drunk. In order to ascertain its quality accurately, (by permission of Mr. Mills,) I had it analyzed by Dr. A. R. Ledoux, one of the most reliable chemists in the country, in comparison with the best product of Orange County. Of course I cannot picture the farm in these pages, nor drive the stock through them, but I subjoin the analysis of the milk, which speaks well enough of the condition of the cows and the quality of their fodder.

CERTIFICATE OF ANALYSIS.

NEW YORK, April 5, 1881.

SIR:-The samples of milk marked I and II, and submitted to us for analysis, contain:

Mr. Mills claims with enthusiasm that the system of ensilage which he has discovered and adopted will revolutionize the present system of farming, and so I will, as nearly as I can, tell how he was led to its discovery, and give his reasons for believing in the good he thinks it must accomplish.

The first experiment which Mr. Mills made, and through which he discovered his system of ensilage, was in the Fall of 1876. He was led to it through a blunder committed in undertaking to improve the quality of corn common to the section of the State in which he lives. He tried to hybridize it with a very superior species of Southern corn, and in order to accomplish his purpose planted each in alternate rows in the Spring of 1876. The home corn was fully ripe and ready to harvest when the Southern corn had only begun to develop its pollen, nothwithstanding the latter stood twice as high as the former. Mr. Mills had failed to take into account, at the time of planting, this difference in the time of maturity of the two species. He harvested the home species and left the other standing, trusting that with favorable weather he might be able to harvest it before the frost came, but late in October the frost nipped the leaves while the corn was yet in the milk. There were about 20 acres of it, standing 12 to 15 feet high, and what to do to save it was the question. After thinking the matter over he concluded to dig four or five good-sized pits in a dry gravel bank, line them with straw, cut and place the corn in them as soon as possible, cover it over with straw and plank, and press it down with earth. This he did; the work occupying him about a week. In the Spring of 1877, as early as the frost permitted, he

opened the first pit and found the fodder in an excellent state of preservation. Not having cut it up when he placed it in the pits, he was obliged to use a derrick with a double purchase and a heavy team of powerful horses to break it out. He found that his animals liked the fodder very much, and in order to consume the whole of it he added to his herd by purchasing a number of cows. In consequence of the blunder in planting his corn, and the success he had in preserving his fodder as the result of it, Mr. Mills says he then and there devised the method which he has since perfected and now has in practical and successful use.

Mr. Mills prepares the soil for planting the corn from which he makes his ensilage,, just as he would for an ordinary crop of corn, and puts the seed in about the last of May or the first of June, according to the condition of the season, so that the seed shall not be subject to any drawback from frost or cold. He plants it in drills of about three inches wide, with a space of three feet between each drill, about 20 or 30 grains to the foot, and uses a blood and bone phosphate as a fertilizer to stimulate the young plant at the start. The first cultivation he gives it is by plowing it with the ordinary corn plow, throwing a furrow away from the drills, then afterwards throwing it back by the hilling cultivator. For seed he uses a species of Southern white corn, a kind easily obtainable in the New York market.

The corn is harvested in the latter part of September, when the stalks are fully matured-not dead, but whilst still green in color-and filled with saccharine matter. This stage of growth is indicated by full tasselling and the beginning to ear. The harvesting is done in the ordinary old-fashioned way, by hand, with a stalk-knife, and a sufficient labor force is employed to fill a pit of 300 tons capacity within three days, because it is essential to gather and cut the corn and put it into the silo, and get it under uniform and continuous pressure within the shortest possible time, in order to save all the food properties. Mr. Mills uses two corn cutters, one cutting one-half inch, and the other an inch length, of a combined capacity of 100 tons per day, using steam power for the purpose.

He has two silos or pits, each 40 feet long, 13 feet wide and 20 feet deep, located in. the centre of his barn, the walls of which are constructed of a concrete of stone and cement two feet thick, the sides and ends parallel, and the bottom well cemented. Upon the walls, flush with the inside of them, a structure of ordinary boards is built, fifteen feet high, which serves as a feeder to the pit, and which, when both are filled, will compensate for the shrinkage of the mass by compression. When the pit and feeder are filled, the surface is leveled, and sectional covers four feet in width, and in length. one inch shorter than the width of the pit, are placed upon it, upon which are placed. 50 tons of grain in bags (making 5 tons to each section) evenly distributed. Mr. Mills uses grain for weight because it is convenient. Anything else that can be uniformly distributed would answer. It takes about ten days for the whole mass to compress sufficiently for the covers to be on a level with the top of the pit, and then the feeder can be taken down. Mr. Mills allows no tramping or mussing of the mass, for the reason that he finds that any portion of the succulent stalks subjected to pressure will cause the juice to exude, and immediately upon relieving the pressure the air takes its place in the cellular tissue of the plant, and fermentation results in the body of the mass. The one inch of space between the cover and the sides of the pit is left for the escape of air and ambient moisture; the uniform and continuous pressure forces out the atmosphere and gases—which may have accumulated while preparing the mass for pressure—through the half-inch opening between the cover and the sides, and keeping them out until the pressure is removed.

When this fodder is to be used for the cattle, the bags of grain from the first section of the cover are removed and their contents ground for use, while the fodder lying immediately underneath them is being fed. The fodder is taken down perpen-

dicularly to the bottom of the pit. While one section is being used the pressure on the remaining sections continues the same, thus excluding the atmosphere as effectually as if each section were a small pit by itself. Thus, one section after another is fed until the whole is exhausted.

The two pits completed cost Mr. Mills about $700. When filled last Fall they contained about 600 tons of ensilage of maize, grown on about thirteen acres of ground, costing, including seed, tilling, gathering and putting into the pits ready for feeding, less than $500. This was the only fodder Mr. Mills used on his farm, not having a ton of hay since he commenced feeding his animals on the 15th of October last. The preserved fodder in the first pit was not exhausted until the 25th of last January, and sustained 120 horned cattle and 12 horses in good and healthy condition a period of more than three months, with less grain or ground feed than would have been required if the best of hay had been used instead of the ensilage. The balance in the second pit will keep the stock to the end of the seven months, as before stated in this article. The important conditions to observe in order to secure perfect preservation and good fodder are, first, the use of the proper kind of seed; second, facilities for cutting the fodder and filling the pit as quickly as possible after harvesting; third, to allow no more tramping, and consequent injury of the mass, than is absolutely necessary to level it off for the covers. As soon as the covers are in place see that the weight is immediately and uniformly applied, and allow no straw or other dessicated vegetable matter to come in contact with or be mixed with the fodder in the pit.

Mr. Mills claims that he is the discoverer of the value of continuous and uniform pressure for ensilage, or the preservation of green fodder, and the originator of the means and method of applying it. He claims that this system of ensilage will obviate the necessity for green soiling in the Summer-a practice which he considers most pernicious, and of the effects of which many farmers seem ignorant. He says the meat of the animals which are fed on it is injurious to health, and their milk is the frequent cause of dysentery and death amongst children; that the butter and cheese produced from animals fed upon this unripe annual plant are necessarily bitter and unwholesome. In short, Mr. Mills believes that the natural effect upon an animal of eating unripe fodder is to poison its product, because in consuming the unripe feed it eats only poison. Disease is the immediate effect of it on the animal. In the Winter succeeding its use, the farmer finds on his hands ten or a dozen cows that are sick with hollow-horn or some other disorder that he does not know how to account for— not even imagining that it is the result of the green, unripe annual fodder that they have been fed on the preceding season.

Mr. Mills intends to enrich his farm for the cultivation of the sweetest and best grasses, and to keep them in the form of ensilage, cutting them, of course, when ripe for this purpose, and feeding them instead of the coarse fodder which he is now using. He thinks his animals will fare better on 10 tons of such grasses than they will upon 40 tons of the corn fodder; in other words, that 10 tons to the acre of ripe, sweet grass is fully equivalent to 40 tons of corn. He does not propose to pasture his stock after this year, believing that the same grass harvested when it is in the flower will be productive of more profit than to let the animals eat it when it is just starting out of the ground. And he finally proposes not to sow corn for fodder, but to raise only rich, sweet perennial grasses for ensilage.

A farm of 100 acres ordinarily keeps about 20 cows. On a farm of 100 acres, upon Mr. Mills' system of ensilage, he proposes to keep 300, using 30 acres for ensilage and the other 70 to grow his grain on. From the exceeding richness produced by the manure from so many animals he thinks he can raise sufficient grain on the 70 acres ; that is to say, about 80 bushels of corn to the acre, or 30 bushels of wheat. Heretofore he says that it has required 200 acres of land to pasture his animals, but he proposes in

future to keep the same number on 11 acres, and keep them for the Winter, to say nothing about grain. And then, instead of planting 10 or 11 acres to winter them, he will plant 25 acres, and winter and summer them on the product.. He says he shall keep 150 head of cattle on the product of 25 acres of land the year round, and have the balance of his farm-say 275 acres-to grow grain on. The difference in cost between the maintenance of an animal under the system ordinarily adopted by farmers and that adopted by Mr. Mills, he claims is the difference between $80 per annum and $12 per annum ; in other words, it does not cost him over $12 per head to maintain his animals for one year, while it costs a farmer under the ordinary process $80 for the same time.

I am aware that there are many interested in agriculture who doubt the ultimate success of the system of ensilage, and who have expressed a fear as to its effect on the health of stock and the value of their product; but I know of no more practical man amongst them than the gentleman whose views I have quoted. He is a well-known and conservative business man, a member of the Produce Exchange of New York, and his conclusions as to the system which he is pursuing are entitled to the gravest consideration. That he has no doubt of their correctness is evident. He has demonstrated their value to himself and can certainly show, through the condition of his stock and the value of their product, a reason for the faith that is in him. I hope and believe that the system which I have seen successfully working on his farm will be established as a safe system for the agriculture of this country. From Maine to the Ohio line, including the New England and Middle States, the farmers are bemoaning the condition of their lands, under which they cannot compete with the rich and easily cul tivated lands of the West. The Western States, too, are suffering annually an immense loss through the depletion consequent on raising grain for export. How great this depletion is can be clearly comprehended from the fact that the exhaustion of mineral constituents from the soil, namely, phosphoric acid and potash, was equal in value to $100,000,000 in 1879, when the value of the corn crop was estimated at $500,000,000, or 20 per cent. of the value of the crop. Mills' system of ensilage will, in my opinion, recreate the agricultural industry of the East, re-enrich the depleted lands of the West; and I greet it with welcome and thanksgiving, because of the blessing that inheres in it for the agriculturists of this country, and the consumers of the world. The great dairying industry of the country must greatly prosper under this system; butter and cheese can be produced at a much lower price than the present cost, and at more profit, and of much better quality than the best now on the market; and the oleomargarine or manufactured grease now sold fraudulently in conflict with natural butter, and the lard-cheese, will be displaced by genuine butter and cheese of the best quality, both in the home and foreign markets.

To an American will belong the honor and fame of having perfected the system of ensilage, in his discovery of the value of uniform continuous pressure and the method of applying it. His honor and fame will endure and grow brighter and brighter, burnished by laborers working with the energy of enthusiasm in an attractive, honorable and profitable industry, which this discovery has made possible, and from which it has eliminated the discouraging elements of drudgery and uncertainty. But enthusiasm in behalf of Mr. Mills is no reason for withholding recognition and gratitude from one whose experiments in the same direction for thirty years in France have enabled him to do great good—not only to himself, but to the agriculturists of his own country and those of our own who have received suggestions from him.

Auguste Goffart of Sologne, began his experiments on ensilage in 1850, and constructed his first underground silos in 1852; and with the persistence and intelligence of a moral and agricultural enthusiast, has been working in this direction for the development of the agriculture of his own country and the world ever since, in the face of dis