554
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
immediately in large pits, where it remains, covered with earth, until it is wanted for use. It was very highly prized by those who^used it, and was much relished by the cattle. At my suggestion it was described by an Austrian agriculturist in the November number of the " American Agriculturist,” and was also copied in the " Essex Agricultural Society’s Transactions,” for 1873, and is well worthy of examination and criticism.
My Austrian friend has also recently written to me that another sour-fodder, probably also unknown in America, was cured by them (on the Archduke Albrecht’s estate) in the autumn of 1873, when about 5,000 cwt. of sugar-beets were made into sour-fodder in the following manner : " We hauled in the sugar-beets from the fields, washed and cut them, then we mixed the cut beets with some chaff in the proportion of one cwt. chaff to ten cwt. cut beets ; viz., we put into the pits (the same as above referred to for sour-hay) a layer of ten cwt. cut sugar-beets ; then we placed upon the beets a layer of one cwt. chaff and mixed the two layers well with a fork; then came again a layer of beets, and upon this layer came again a layer of chaff, and was again properly mixed, and so on. This manipulation was continued until a height of six feet over the level of the ground. On the top of the fodder-heap we put rye-straw bundles, which had been opened, and covered the heap with earth, as in the sour-hay making.”
I shall deposit with the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture a few circulars of foreign implement-makers, which may be worth the perusal of interested parties.
FRANCIS H. APPLETON.
Broadfields Farm, West Peabody, Essex County.