SILOS WITH AIR-TIGHT ROOFS.

Waikato Times, Volume 2188, Issue XXVII, 17 July 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

SILOS WITH AIR- TIGHT ROOFS.

ACCORDING to a writer in the Agricultural Gazette an airtight cover put on a silo is sufficient to prevent mildew, and if this be done he states that there is no necessity for applying pressure. He says :—": — " Last spring four silos were erected upon thisestate, and were covered iby a Howard's airtight roof or cover. Two were filled, and have proved per. fectly successful. The fodder put ia the silos — trifolium, tares, green oats, winter beans, rye grass, and clover — all turned out thoroughly and almost uniformly good. I say almost, beaauae the beans, which were not nearly so nice smelling as all the other crops, and quite black,, rathir disfigured the appearance of the food, but stock ate it as readily as the rent. No food indeed could be better than the silage produced. Our ewes and tegs have been fed upon it with oat straw cut into chuff, and the ordinary qunntit) of cuke ever since October, and we never hnd such a heavy fall of lambs, or stock more healthy than they are at the present time. Our land grows tares very rapidly, and I was surprised to find after what 1 had read that none of the crops made bettor mlage than tares. lam just putting down more silos at our outlying farms, which are also to be covered with the airtight roofs. lam satisfird that the principle is sound and scientific. From what I have been able to gather, tho action which goes on in the airtight *<iloB is as follows : — A certatu quantity of atmospheric air is stored up with the fodder, no matter how full the silo, or how tightly the fodder is pressed down. As soon as fermentation commences the atmospheric air begins to be converted into carbonic arid tfaa, and us the airtight cover cuts off the Bupply cf fie»h air, as Boon as* the conversion i«eompVe the fermentation stops. It may be o irbonic acid gas is deatli to the floating spores. Or it may be that the cutting off the frtsh air supply has the same effect upon mildew spores as it has upon fermentation; at any rate we have almost none. Another effect in, thnt the fermentation beitt£ arrested as soon as the atmospheric air U converted into carbonic acid gas, sweet silavo i« produced, sour Hilnge bcinjr the result of fermentation being carried too far, by being kept too lonir a period — in other words, the saccharine juice 3 existiug at the stage of Bweet f»iU>re become converted iuto acetic acid or vinegar when fermentation i.s continued beyond this xtaire."