AND OTHER FORAGE PLANTS. 133 



till all is within the silo. The covering and pit must be as near- 

 ly air tight as practicable. This is in few words the whole pro- 

 cess of making ensilage. 



THE SILO. 



This may be dug in the level ground, or in the side of a hill, 

 and should be as near as possible to the stalls where the forage 

 is to be used best under the same roof to prevent exposure of 

 stock and men when feeding in inclement weather and to save 

 carriage. In rock and some clays, the silo will need no lining ; 

 but in most places, the sides and bottom should be cemented, 

 or lined with plank, or walled up with stone or brick. Or it 

 may be made only partly under ground, or even wholly above 

 by raising walls sufficiently thick of brick, stone or concrete. 

 If above ground the walls should be thick and strong, well 

 braced and banked with earth. The size will depend upon the 

 wishes of the farmer and may be readily calculated by any one. 

 Well prepared ensilage will weigh about 45 pounds to the cubic 

 foot, or about 56 pounds to the bushel ; equal to about 80 bush- 

 els for every 100 cubic feet. So that a silo ten feet deep, 10 

 feet wide and 10 feet long will hold 45,000 pounds or 22 J tons 

 or 803 bushels. Every foot of length then of such a silo will 

 contain 80 bushels or 2J tons of matured ensilage. The num- 

 ber of bushels any silo contains may be easily found by obtain- 

 ing the number of cubic feet and deducting therefrom one-fifth; 

 the remainder denotes the number of bushels. Thus, if a silo 

 contain 1,000 cubic feet it holds 800 bushels; if 70 cubic feet 

 56 bushels. The silo may be constructed of logs with the 

 spaces well chinked with clays or it may be made as the house 

 described for sweet potatoes on page 28. But these methods 

 are not so safe. The ensilage, when the silo is filled should be 

 covered with a layer of straw from six to fifteen inches in thick- 

 ness, then with planks two inches thick and of such length as to 

 move down inside as the ensilage settles. On the plank stone 

 or other weights should be placed. In the south it would be 

 safer to cover the plank with ten to fifteen inches of earth well 

 packed ; and if so covered the straw will not be required. As 

 the forage settles, the earth on top should be trodden to close 

 fissures and kept air tight. In this way ensilage has kept sonnd 

 two years. 



VALUE OF ENSILAGE. 



Opinions on this subject vary considerably. But the results 

 of many carefully conducted experiments show little or no loss 

 of nutritive matter in changing green corn into ensilage when 

 the corn is cut fine, or in lengths of three-eighths of an inch 

 and closely packed so as to expel the air as perfectly as possible. 



