68 H. R. STEVENS ON ENSILAGE. 



hook will cut it down as fast as two teams will cart it to the silo ; one 

 man to feed the cutter, and one to tend the engine, and two to tread 

 it down. I think another year I can store the crop for seventy-five 

 cents per ton. 



QUES. What do you consider it costs per ton to raise the corn- 

 fodder from the seed, and have it thoroughly packed for ensilage in 

 the silos? 



ANS. The expense of cultivation, including one-half the cost of 

 manure taken up by the crop, was $2.08 per ton ; the cost of putting 

 into silo was one dollar per ton : making $3.08 per tori all packed in 

 silo. 



QCES. What do you consider would be the most practical size and 

 form of silo? 



ANS. The size will have to correspond with the number of cattle 

 to be fed, sa}' five hundred cubic feet to a full-grown animal for the 

 3'ear. The form, a parallelogram twice as long as it is wide. I 

 should prefer a silo with two compartments, each twenty- five feet 

 long, ten feet wide, and fifteen feet deep, to one twenty-five feet 

 long and twenty feet wide, for this reason : it will cost but a little 

 more to build a partition-wall ; and with this arrangement 3-011 can fill 

 one side with corn in the fall, and the other with lye, clover, or Hun- 

 garian, in the late spring. Such a silo, of the size named, will hold 

 enough to keep fifteen cows a year. 



QUES. What do you consider the best and cheapest material for 

 building silos? Some are built of brick, some of stone and cement, 

 some of concrete, and some have been built up with plank with quite 

 good success. 



ANS. The walls should be of diT stones faced with concrete. 



QUES. Have you opened 3~our silo to feed ensilage to stock ? If 

 so, did it come out satisfactory? 



ANS. Opened the silo Nov. 27, and found the experiment a per- 

 fect success. The top of the mass, about two inches thick, was a 

 little affected 1)3- fermentation ; which might have been prevented by 

 covering it deeper with rye-straw before weighting it down, say about 

 eight inches thick. After getting into it, the ensilage proved highly 

 satisfactory. In order that you may fully understand my way of esti- 

 mating the contents of my silo, and manner of feeding, I would say, 

 that, when fully pressed down, the twenty-five tons occupied nine 

 hundred and sixty cubic feet, or thirty-eight and a half cubic feet to 

 a ton, provided there was no loss of weight. 



