CORRESPONDENCE OF F. S. PEER. 91) 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



CORRESPONDENCE FROM 



. IF. s. IFIEIEIR,. 



E. PALMYRA, N.Y. 



MY DEAR SIR : 



In reply to your request concerning the result of my experience 

 with " ensilage," it may not be out of place to say that 1 did not 

 adopt the system because it was a new thing, nor as an experiment ; 

 for I have neither time to devote nor money to expend on uncertain- 

 ties, but because through the evidence of my five senses I was con- 

 vinced that it was practical. I saw stock of all kinds eating and 

 thriving. I tasted, and found nothing disagreeable. In smelling could 

 detect nothing offensive ; and when I heard, from men on whose word 

 and judgment I could rely, the same universal testimony of its mer- 

 its, I began to feel that it was no longer an experiment, but the legiti- 

 mate offspring of the mother of invention, which like other great 

 improvements are born to the day of necessity. 



It was therefore without a misgiving that I set to work overhauling 

 an old stone carriage-house. It was easily converted into a silo by 

 taking out the hay-loft floor and stalls before walling up the doors and 

 windows, except one in the gable end, through which the silo was 

 filled ; another in the opposite end on the ground, nearly level with 

 the bottom of the silo, which we find very convenient in taking out 

 the ensilage. The walls were given a coat of water-lime, the floor of 

 cement. The building was eighteen by twenty-eight feet and fifteen 

 feet deep, inside measurement ; capacity three hundred tons. 



Were I to build new, should make the building longer and nar- 

 rower, say fourteen by forty feet, and fifteen or eighteen feet deep. 

 The deeper the better. It takes no more plank or weight to press 

 ensilage that is fifteen feet in depth than it does five, and requires no 

 more roofing. 



