WHITMAN & BURRELL'S SILOS. 45 



acres, we use it all on the fifteen acres that furnish the 

 fodder, and shortly the land must become very rich, and 

 then we can use the manure on other land. If we were 

 to build a silo on level land, we would excavate ten or 

 twelve feet below the surface, and then let the walls of 

 the silo run up ten feet, using the earth that was excav- 

 ated to make a bank about the walls above ground. We 

 would locate the silo close to the barn, making the top 

 of the silo on a level with the barn floor over the cows ; 

 then, in feeding out the silo, the fodder could be easily 

 raised with any of the same appliances used for raising 

 and carrying hay, and with a track running to the 

 shutes, the car could be dumped so that the fodder would 

 be deposited in front of the stock. The walls of the silo 

 should be perfectly plumb and parallel, so that the fol- 

 lowers, although fitting closely, can settle without bind- 

 ing when loaded with stone. As you build the silo walls, 

 point up as you proceed, both inside and outside, and 

 then plaster the entire inside, bottom as well as sides, 

 with Portland cement, as it is necessary that the silo 

 should be water-tight, like a cistern. 



A cheaper way to build a silo, and one which Prof. E. 

 W. Stewart, of the "Live Stock Journal," advocates, is 

 to build it of water-lime concrete. 



We think that stone walls two feet thick, plastered 

 with Portland cement, are better than concrete, and 

 where people can afford to build of stone they had better 

 do so. In regard to the size of silos, we would make them 

 twenty feet deep, and put them as much below ground as 

 possible, if good drainage can be had, banking up around 

 the outside with the earth that is excavated, as before 

 stated. A silo thirty feet by sixteen feet, and twenty 

 feet deep, will be large enough to contain two hundred 

 tons of pressed ensilage, and this would keep thirty-five 

 cows six months, feeding about sixty pounds per day. 

 For one hundred cows, we would advise building a silo 



