THIRD ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 229 



•did a pretty good job but failed to use timber and nails enougb to make 

 the walls capable of resisting the great pressure brought against them 

 when the silo was filled, so I have had some trouble from the walls bulg- 

 ing. The cost of correcting this mistake, however, was not great, and in 

 every respect the silo was a success. The inside construction was origin- 

 ally of two thicknesses of shiplap with resin paper between. Year beforo 

 last this was supplemented with another thickness of shiplap with paper 

 behind it. In each corner a 12-inch plank beveled to fit runs from 

 top to bottom end cuts off that much of the angle. The doors are ar- 

 ranged one above another with a distance of some three feet between 

 opening into a chute which permits the silage when thrown from any of 

 the doors to fall in the alley way in front of my cattle. The result of 

 that year's filling was so satisfactory that during the summer of 1895 I 

 built two others on the same plan in my barn on the other place with 

 the exception that as the barn had no basement these silos were but 

 twenty feet deep. Experience soon showed that the depth was not suf- 

 ficient to give the best results. While we were able to make pretty good 

 silage even in these shallow silos the silage was so much better and loss 

 so much less from spoiling in the deeper one at the other place that a 

 year ago I excavated to a depth of 7 feet in the bottom of these silos 

 and built a wall of stone and cement below the sills. This had the desired 

 effect, as the silage from last year's filling was vastly better than ever 

 before. These three wooden silos, constructed at a comparatively small 

 cost, are giving very good satisfaction, and others like them I have no 

 doubt will give like satisfaction where, for any reason, a farmer does 

 not care to use the money to build better ones. I believe, however, that 

 the round silo is the best, and last season built one of this description 

 30 feet in depth and 17 feet inside diameter. This silo is located outside 

 of a shed fitted with mangers for feeding young cattle and opens into 

 the alley in front of these mangers. The shed is part basement, having a 

 S^foot wall on the side next to the silo. The lower 10 feet of this silo 

 is built of stone and cement, 9 fefst of it below the surface of the 

 ground with the bottom of the silo about 5 feet below the floor of the 

 feeding alley. Above the 10 feet of stone work is a frame of 20-foot 2x4 

 studding 12 inches from center to center, lined inside and out with thin 

 lumber made by resawing No. 1 fencing. Outside of this is a layer of 

 paper and a covering of common house siding. Inside this woodwork is 

 a lining of brick and cement about 5 inches thick, the inner surface 

 flush with the inside of the stone work below and whitewashed inside 

 with cement. The capacity of these four silos is about 450 tons and it 

 requires about forty-five acres of average corn to fill them. 



Up to last year I had run my cutter with an old ten-horse sweep power 

 of which I owned a fifth interest, using five horses. But on account of 

 the greater amount of work to do I last year discarded this power and 

 bought a ten-horse power gasoline engine, and this year I have laid aside 

 my old cutter to be disposed of and have secured a new No. 20 machine. 



As to the advantage of siloing corn over any other method of savins 

 the crop I think there is no question. Experiments have shown that a 



