■WHITMAN & BtJEEELL's SILOS. 43 



trodden, down. The corn was large, Btg.lks twelve to 

 fourteen feet high, single ones weighing five to five and 

 a half pounds, 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 to- 

 gether closely ; and upon these covers we put fifty tons 

 of stone to each silo, the stone having been picked up on 

 the farm. Within a week one had settled to twelve and a 

 half feet and the other to eight and a half feet. 



On the 26th of October we opened the silo having 

 eight and a half feet of ensilage, and found the fodder as 

 green and sweet as when first put in. We used no straw 

 under the covers^ and yet right next to the boards the 

 com was all right. We have fed the stock since October 

 26th, and they are all right, looking and feeding well. 

 One cubic foot of ensilage weighs forty-seven pounds. 

 We are feeding sixty-five pounds to each cow per day, 

 with four pounds of middlings and half a pound of oil- 

 meal, or cotton-seed meal. We had, before we began feed- 

 ing the ensilage out to the stock, two hundred and twelve 

 tons, and the exact cost of harvesting it, filling the silos, 

 putting on stone, etc., was two hundred and seventeen 

 dollars, allowing full wages for our own time, etc. We 

 are now going to feed fifty to fifty-five pounds to each 

 cow per day, and increase the grain to about six or seven 

 pounds for the cows still giving milk, and half as much 

 to the dry ones. 



This two hundred and twelve tons from seven acres, 

 or a little over, is a large result, and is equal to seventy 

 odd tops of hay, costing but three dollars per ton, or ten 

 tons to the acre. We believe that by putting all the 

 manure back on the seven acres of land that we can get 

 up to forty and possibly fifty tons to the acre. We see 

 no reason now why the cows that are being fed on en- 



