at Home and Abroad. 
195 
Cost of Cutting 10 Acres Grass for EnsQage. 
6 acres seeds. 
1\ „ barley. 
2i „ oats. 
10 acres. 
£ s. d. 
15 men,* 2 days, at 4s. per day 0 0 0 
Food for 15 men, 2 davs, at Is. each per dav .. .. 1 10 0 
Beer " " .. .,200 
Sundry help 100 
Horses and carts 2 00 
Engine and man, 2 days,- cutting 2 15 0 
Salt, 3 qrs. at 30s. per ton 0 12 
Bran, 3/. 
Total cost for 10 acres . . £15 6 2 
or per acre, 1?. 10s. 6(7. 
It will be noticed that there is a difference of from 10*. 8<f. 
to 15s. Id. per acre in favour of the silage. Further it will be 
observed that the cost of providing the silo is again nearly \l, 
per ton (actuallv 19s. 2d.) of its estimated capacity ; and that 
the cost of making: the silage, exclusive of the bran and the 
weighting material, is between 4s. and 5s. per ton. Old 
American butter firkins filled with sand were used for weight- 
ing, so their expense could not have been great. 
. — Silos with Mechanical Means of Co:^ipeessiok. ] 
32. Mr. C. G. Johnson, Oakwood, Croft, Darlington. — The first silo consists 
of an old bam with a tiled roof. It is 15 feet long, 12 feet wide, and 8 feet deep, 
viz., 2 feet below the ground and 6 feet above, and is calcxilated to hold 
28 tons. A newly built silo is 18 feet long, 10 feet wide, and 22 feet high, is 
calculated to hold 80 tons, and will be filled with second-crop clover. The 
following details refer to the old sUo, which was first filled at the end of 
June 1883 with old meadow-grass; but the material was taken out again 
soon afterwards in order to enable improvements to be made in the pressing 
mechanism, and was then made into hay. It appeared well cured, and was 
very satisfactory. The silo was re-filled on August 14th, Augtist 22nd, and 
finadly on Augvist 28th, the grass being cut in the same condition as it would 
have been if haymaking had been the object. It was pitted whole, and 
mixed with about 20 lbs. of salt per ton. The pressure applied is calculated 
to be 200 lbs. to the sqtiare foot, by means of a weighted lever acted upon by 
a hydraulic ram, after the removal of which the pressure is continuous. I 
prefer this mechanical arrangement to dead weight, because of the time lost 
at each end of the filling days in taking off and putting on the dead weights. 
I thus get the whole day for filling instead of only a few hours in the middle 
of the day. 
The covering over and compressing by mechanical means only occupies a 
* 4 Mowers ; 2 pitchers ; 2 carters ; 3 filling on stages ; 2 keeping engines 
clear ; 2 feeding, cutting. Total, 15 men. 
o 2 
