The comparative value of these vegetables will become a matter for discussion,
but I have no doubt that it can be easily proven to be twenty times greater. The
farmers of Orange county requires six acres for summer and winter support of one
<;ow by hay and grazing, of which seven-twelfths is fed in a dry state. Twenty-five
tons of green corn-stalks will support, in better average condition, two cows for a
year, with 68 pounds per day. But it is not difficult to double this quantity of stalks
per acre. One- half the, manure derived from feeding green fodder, carefully pre-
served, will keep up the land. A mature or fattening animal removes none of the
constituents of its food that are valuable for manure. Therefore, the most fertile
farms of the Eastern States are, as a rule, those that are devoted to stock or dairy
farming. Cattle are not only the distributing reservoirs of vegetation, but they also
may be made to increase the sources of supply.
The preservation of green crops in pits called silos has been successfully, con-
tinuously, and profitably practiced in France by Auguste Goffart and his disciples
«ince 1873, and in the United States by Francis Morris,, of Maryland, since 1876. It
is no longer an experiment either as to its practicability nor as to its profit. Either
for the mechanic, with a single cow, or for small and large farmers it is proportion-
ately for all a most excellent system of feeding cattle of all sorts, including horses,
■sheep and hogs.
