care is necessary in the construction of a silo. Small silos are 

 better than large ones as the filling each time should be done 

 within a day or two. The best size is 10 ft. X 10 ft. x 5 ft. 



1.074. The best materials to pit are green maize stalks, 

 arahar plants in flower,- juar^ sorghum saccharatum, buck- 

 wheat, barley straw and coarse grasses. The materials should 

 be filled chopped up, if possible. For a 10 ft. square silo, 4 or 



5 cwts. of material should be put in, and i Ib. of salt sprinkled 

 over the mass for every cwt. of material used, and the whole 

 well trodden down specially at the sides and corners. This 

 process is repeated until the whole of the pit is filled up. 

 An extra quantity of salt should be sprinkled at the top and 

 the whole of the pit covered with boards or darma-mats, 

 earth being used for weighing the boards at 100 Ibs. per 

 square foot. A 10 ft. x 10 ft. x 10 ft. pit will hold about 5 

 tons of materials at the first filling. As the boards will gradu- 

 ally sink, crevices in the earth must be carefully filled, up. 

 After a week or 10 days the silo should be opened again and 

 filled in the manner already described, and closed again. The 

 opening and filling may be repeated 4 or 6 times, i.e., so long 

 as there is considerable sinking. Properly filled, a pit 10 ft. 

 X 10 ft. x 10 ft. will hold 10 tons of silage which is equivalent 



to 2 or 3 tons of dry hay. If necessary the silage can be used 



6 weeks after the filling has been completed when fermenta- 

 tion will cease. But it will remain good for at least 2 years. In 

 England 10 tons of green fodder produce gi tons of silage 

 or 3 tons of dry hay. In India the loss of weight in silage- 

 making comes to a great deal more. In 1892-93, at Allaha- 

 bad 33,652 maunds of grass made 21, 781 maunds of silage, 

 which means a loss of 35 per cent. 



1.075. If a thermometer is available it should be seen that 

 the top 3 or 4 ft. of the materials attain the heat of about 

 I25F before the second filling is done. The maximum tem- 

 perature (i6oF) is reached in about 6 weeks, after which 

 normal temperature is attained in a few days. A silo should 



