236 



AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURE. 



coop shown effects the object more readily and easily. 

 The clucker or cluckers are put in, and then the coop is 

 tilted up as shown. Biddy becomes very much disgusted 

 when she has to occupy an angular floor like this, and is 

 so glad to escape after a day or two of discomfort, that 

 she forgets to cluck, eats heartily, and gets to laying 

 again. 



Dairy Silo. 



XX. CROPS FOR FEED, SILOING, &c. 



THAT cultivation must be increased to provide feed for 

 such times as the early months of 1895, which racked the 



energies of the most skil- 

 ful in the dairying busi- 

 ness, was made painfully 

 apparent. Never before 

 were such quantities of 

 feed stuff purchased. 

 Hay, maize meal, pollard, 

 bran, and molasses, were 

 amongst the feed stuffs 

 in demand. But the best 

 of them are poor and 

 unsatisfactory in comparison with the maize, sorghum, oats, 

 rye, barley, and the grasses we can store up in ordinary 

 seasons for feed in times of scarcity. That green feed, as 

 well as grain, and other substances could be preserved in 

 pits, or silos, is no new discovery. In Biblical times they 

 were used for storing grain. There are several silos 

 for grain storage near Sydney, built in early colonial days. 



The Silo. As brought into use in recent times for 

 storing soft feed for stock in Europe and America, the silo is 

 an excavation or pit in the ground, built of brick, as a 

 rule, laid in cement ; stone has also been used. In New 

 South Wales, silos of this elaborate sort have also been put 

 down ; but, since it became evident how suitable is the 

 climate for preserving feed, with as much moisture as 

 possible in it, silos have been simplified very much. For 

 instance, excavations are made in granitic and other porous 



