. COST OF FARM-PRODUCE. 87 



the rye sowed, the garden made, and the potatoes plant- 

 ed, you dig a hole into that bank east of your bafn, 30 

 feet wide, and 45 feet long, and about four feet lower than 

 the sills to your barn ; wall it up all round, then plaster 

 the walls with concrete, run a wall through the centre, 

 cut off the corners, and carry these concrete walls up 

 above the top of the earth until they are 16 feet high on 

 the inside ; then get a carpenter to put a light roof over 

 them to keep the rain and snow out, and you have two 

 Silos which will hold 400 tons of Ensilage, two tons of 

 which is worth more than one ton of timothy hay. You 

 will have to hire some help to build these Silos ; and it 

 will take about 125 barrels of cement, besides the labor 

 of yourself and hired hand : you will have to pay out in 

 building them about $300. Early in May, as soon as 

 your spring rye is eighteen inches high, commence to cut 

 it, and feed it to your cows in the barn ; the last week in 

 May cut the grass in the ten-acre lot ; as soon as you 

 have got the hay off of it, turn it over, roll it, take my 

 Nishwitz harrow, and harrow it both ways, then plough 

 the rye-field, turning under the stubble and the green 

 second growth. Rye, if cut before heading, grows a 

 second crop. After harrowing that, the same as the sod- 

 land (and, Sylvester, let me right here repeat the old 

 Pennsylvania Dutchman's advice to his son about pre- 

 paring corn-land : * Shon ! you shust drag and drag and 

 drag until you have him shust right, and den you shust 

 drag him vonce more, and he vill do pretty veil ') , I will 

 let you take my Albany corn-planter, and with one horse 

 you can plant the whole 15 acres in three days, at the 

 same time distributing about 100 pounds of Stockbridge 

 corn -manure or some good reliable superphosphate in 

 the drills. I use an equal amount of plaster mixed with 

 the fertilizer. Make the drills about three and a half 



