290 SOILING CROPS AND THE SILO. 



as earth is banked against the outer lining. Sealed 

 dead air spaces have been made by putting strip.=5 

 of furring laid on tarred paper between the two 

 thicknesses of boards which form the inner lining of 

 the silo, and by lining stone silos with wood inside so 

 as to have a space between the boards and the 

 wood. These can be avoided, as experience has 

 shown that a single lining of wood with tarred paper 

 under is usually a sufficient protection to the silage 

 when the wooden silo has also an outer lining of 

 boards, and that in stone silos frost can usually be 

 warded off by lining with bricks inside coated with 

 cement. But dead air spaces must needs be made 

 in the walls of wooden silos with studding lined 

 within and without, and also when stone silos are 

 lined without. These can however be easily pre- 

 vented by providing ventilation. 



Such ventilation may be furnished by making 

 the sills and plates a little narrower than the studs. 

 Openings thus made for the escape of the air below 

 and above should of course be next to the outside 

 sheeting. Where provision is not thus made for 

 ventilation, it may be made by boring a small hole 

 through the outer lining below and above and into 

 the space between each pair of studs. Openings 

 thus made should be protected by some kind of wire 

 netting to prevent depredation from rats and mice. 

 Moreover, if no ventilation is provided in a silo 

 underneath the roof or in the roof, decay will be 

 rapid from the abundance of the gases which rise 

 up out of the fermenting silage. 



Notwithstanding the rapid decay in many of 

 the earlier silos, it is easily possible to build wooden 



Digitized by Microsoft® 



