PRESERVING GREEN FODDER.

Southland Times, Issue 1770, 22 July 1873, Page 3

PRESERVING GREEN FODDER.

• ■ ■ 1 The question of preserving green fod- ' der in trenches for winter consumption is assuming serious proportions in France. TJp to the present, green food served only 1 for the support of cattle pending the • summer and early autumn. It is quite [ clear that maize, beet leaves, rape in : flower, rye grass, in fact all forage plants with comparatively thick stems, can be conserved very well in trenches, and become thus a most useful adjunct to winter feeding, that they most beneficially 1 prepare the soil for grain crops, allow the 1 number of stock to be increased, and consequently a greater supply of farmyard manure to be produced. Then such green crops are less expensive to cultivate than [ roots, and permit of more land to be devoted to other produce Hitherto it was necessary to consume green fodder 1 at once ; now it can be magazined in a ' fresh state, without any preliminary dry--1 ing, and in a manner that dispenses with i out offices and kindred harvesting. Be--1 sides, in the case of colza, such plants may ' be cultivated as an intercuraryor stolen ' crop. A trench in a dry and unexposed situation, 110 yards long, 2% yards deep, and 10 yards wide, will suffice for 300 tons f of green maize, which must be covered with a coating 1 yard thick of earth, 1 roof-form, taking care to exclude all 1 connection with the open air. Many persons mix hay, chopped straw, colza husks, etc., between the layers of green maize or rye. The propriety of allowing 1 the cut fodder twenty-four hours or so ,to dry before being buried is still a matter for experiment. No country in the world is better placed than France for working ; out those important questions — the ra--1 tional breeding and fatteuing of live 1 Btock in connection with an alimentation rich and appropriate, as so ad--1 mirably treated by Dr Kiihn, of Halle University. The natural conditions as 1 to soil and climate in that country are favorable, and the French peasant can never be reproached either with laziness or want of economy.