MESSES. Buckley's expekiexcb ijt EjfsiLAGE. 39 



taken out of the pit were suflSeient for the walls, and 

 more too. Neither is any charge made for superinten- 

 dence, and no doubt it would be fair to add fully ten per 

 cent for the supervision and actual labor, which at one 

 time or another the farmer himself gave, or say three 

 hundred and twenty-five dollars in all. There were 

 fifty barrels of cement used, and about half as much 

 . lime, part of which, eight barrels, was very good, and 

 the rest, fifty bushels, cheap and of a low grade. 

 The proportion of sand to cement and lime in the 

 mortar with which the walls were laid up, was about 

 two-thirds, but in coating over the surface, to make the 

 whole water-tight, nearly pure cement was used. Thus 

 the pits were filled, each one receiving its quota of ten 

 tons, more or less, being well trodden down, allowed to 

 settle over night, and again trodden down in the morning 

 before work, aU hands being engaged in the trampling. 

 When fuU as possible, settled and trampled, and begin- 

 ning to heat in the top layers, it is covered with six 

 inches of long rye straw, any other straw will answer, 

 and this, with a layer of planks, cut to fit crossways, but 

 not so long as to bind. Stones are piled, or rather laid, 

 upon the planks, so that fully one hundred pounds to the 

 square foot rests upon the fodder. Thus it is left for 

 winter use. Filled full, one of these pits will hold sixty 

 tons. That is, containing as they do over three thou- 

 sand cubic feet, or two thousand four hundred bushels, 

 at fifty pounds to the bushel, which the compressed, 

 moist, and almost solid fodder will weigh ; this is equal 

 to one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, or sixty 

 tons. 



As to the keeping, there can be no question, if the 

 work is properly done. A brisk fermentation comes on, 

 as we have seen, as it does in a tub of apple pulp for 

 making cider. If the air has very slight access it will go 

 on to ultimate decay ; but if it is kept out, the little air 



