670 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



An outside cave is our ideal cellar. One we believe within the means, 

 and best suited to the average farmer, is of concrete construction, eight 

 feet in width and fourteen feet in length. The side walls should be three 

 feet high, then top with half circles making seven in the clear in center. 

 It should have a sub or vestibule entrance with double doors. There 

 should be a fourteen inch ventilator placed in the ceiling, and at or near 

 the rear end or farthest away from the door. The intake of air should 

 pass through a twelve inch tile or underground conduit, placed four 

 feet below the sjirface, and laid on a straight and even grade. Take in the 

 air fifty to sixty feet away from the cellar and enter same at front near 

 the floor line, farthest away from the outlet. If the ground is such 

 as to give the intake line a good steep grade the better the ventilation. 



The farmer or grower of fruits and vegetables, who will construct for 

 himself such a cave or cellar as we have feebly described above, and 

 store in same good, well selected produce, he will be amply paid for his 

 labor and investment. In addition to the profitable side of the question 

 he will have the satisfaction of living the year out off the product of the 

 farm. 



To substantiate our claim we cite you to bulletin number 144, page 357, 

 by the Iowa State College at Ames, where Prof. Laurenz Green says 

 of Cellar Storage in comparison to Cold Storage, "such varieties of ap- 

 ples as Winesaps and mammoth Black Twigs kept until May in excellent 

 condition." 



When we can keep apples for market for seven months it speaks well 

 for cellar storage. 



For general purposes on the farm and in the home, we advocate a 

 storage as outlined above. For commercial and use on a large scale, 

 there is but one, that of chemical, or forced circulation through pipes 

 passing around or through spaces in which fruits and vegetables are 

 placed for preservation, and that is a very expensive method to install 

 and operate. 



THE SILO ON THE FARM. 



BY CHAS. LAU. 



(Read before the Clinton County Farmers' Institute, DeWitt, Iowa.) 



When land values have reached the $100 mark and over, the farmer 

 is forced up against the serious proposition, what to do to make the re- 

 turns for his farm represent a reasonable dividend on the capital in- 

 vested. Though land values may rise somewhat higher, there is no 

 prospect that crops will be larger or ])rices higher than they have 

 been in recent years, known as years of prosperity. With still lower 

 prices or smaller crops or both at the same time, investment and divi- 

 dend will still more grow out of proportion and farming will become 

 discouraging as a financial enterprise. In the face of such discouraging 

 possibilities at any time in the near future, what can be done to restore 

 farming to a reasonable interest paying basis? I will answer. We must 

 and we will do what peasants of older countries on much higher priced 



