CORRESPONDENCE OF WHITMAN $ BURRELL. 71 



CHAPTER XVII. 



CORRESPONDENCE FROM 



IMIESSIR/S.. vsrHiiTiyn^.nsr & IBTJIR,- 



DEAR SIR: 



Your favor at hand. We send you by this mail, report containing 

 description of our silo. Hope this will be satisfactory. We will 

 gladly furnish any further information that we can. 



Our silo is on the hill-side next to the barn. The bottom of the 

 silo is on a level with the cow-stable floor, and there are entrances 

 into silo from both the cow-stable and the floor above. The top of 

 the silo is on a level with the upper or main floor of the barn, so that 

 the fodder can be taken out on to either of the three floors of the 

 barn. You will appreciate the convenience of this arrangement. 

 The silo is built of stone ; the walls are three feet thick next to the 

 bank, and two feet thick next to the barn ; the roof of barn extends 

 over silo. All around the walls twelve inches of cobble-stone are 

 filled in from top to bottom, so as to prevent any water lodging 

 against the walls. Capacity of entire silo, about four hundred tons, 

 or two hundred tons for each compartment. On June 1st we put 

 in about seven acres of corn, with a drill, rows twenty-one inches 

 apart, and dropping six or eight kernels to a foot ; in September we 

 cut same, hauled to the silo as fast as we cut in the field ; and with 

 a feed- cutter of largest size, or next to largest size, we cut at the 

 rate of over one hundred loads per day, into pieces three-sixteenths 

 to one-fourth of an inch in length, which was evenly distributed in the 

 silos, and trodden down. The corn was large, stalks twelve to four- 

 teen feet high, single ones weighing five to five pounds and a half, 

 with ears on full of milk. Into one silo we put sixteen feet, and 

 into the other eleven feet ; as soon as filled (one taking three days, 

 and the other four) we put on the covers. These are of plank, three 

 feet wide, sixteen feet long, and two inches thick, fitting together 



