inmumwr^Bi 
Yoii. XL. No. 14 .1 
Whole No. 1627. ) 
[Entered aooordln* to Act of Congress. In the year 1W1. by the dural New-Yorker, In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
into mortar the water-lime, sand and grave’. 
Make a calculation so as to get abont one part 
of dry quick lime to eight of sand used. Being 
mixed up into thin mortar, it will not be diffi¬ 
cult to get the milk of quick-lime mixed thoi- 
oughly through the mass of mortar. The 
quick-lime should be slaked under water sev- , 
eral days before using. ThiB quick-lime will 
improve the wall& and when hard will be 
water-proof. This will give. If stones are also 
used, about one part of water-lime to 13 or 14 
of sand, gravel and stone, and one of quick¬ 
lime to about 15 of other materials. This wall 
will be cheaper than one bui' t wholly with 
water-lime. 
The boxing planks, after the first layer has 
become hard, are raised just 13 inches, leaving 
a lap of two inches on the wall below. The 
mortar is then put in the wall-box and stone 
bedded in as before, and the tiers are carried 
up in this way to the top. The standards may 
be kept from spreading in the middle by hav¬ 
ing a movable clamp hooked across, some feet 
above the boxing. 
Plates eight by ten inches are placed on the 
top of the silo walls, and when the boxes are 
leveled for the top layers of the walls, tbree- 
quarter-iDch bolts, 2i inches long, with screw 
or nut on the upper end and a square bend on 
the lower end. are used. Place three of these 
in each long wall—one in the center of the wall 
and one near each end, 12 inches from the end 
wall. Let the bolt go 13 inches down into the 
wall. To hold these bolts while filling around 
them, bore a hole in a narrow strip of board 
and tack this board across the top of the box 
just where the bolt is to be placed, the upper 
end of the bolt being pat through the hole In 
the board, standing perpendicularly and elgl t 
and three-fourths inches above the bex, so as 
to take the plate. These bolts will be In line, 
so that holes may easily be bored in the plates 
to receive them. 
These plates are framed for short posts, two 
and a half or three feet long, upon which six- 
by-six-inch plates are placed for the roof to 
rest upon. This space between the top of the 
wall and the roof is usually occupied by swing¬ 
ing dojrs, which are closed after the silo Is 
filled; and when it is desired to get as much as 
possible into the silo they are closed and the 
ensilage is piled above the wall two or three 
feet betore the weighted cover is put on, and 
the compressed ensilage only sinks a very little 
below the top of the wall. 
The inside of the walls of the silo is given an 
even coat of cement, thoroughly trowehd 
down. The bottom is also cemented so as to 
make the whole air and water-tight. The doors 
should be double—one hung Inside and the 
other outside. The inside door should be huiig 
so as to shut even with the Inside wall, be in 
two parts, and swing out. Felting should be 
placed on the jams so that the inside doors will 
shut air-tight. The outside door should be 
made in three parts, fasteued together with 
hinges, the upper part only 10 inches wide and 
should be fitted to the outside jams of the doer 
so as to be screwed fast, one section at a tlmr, 
beginning with the lower section. The space 
between the two doors should be filled with 
sawdust, packed in, and the upper section la 
. so narrow that the sawdust can be packed 
Building Ute Silo. 
For convenience of filling, the silo may be 
sunk half its depth in the earth, where the sit¬ 
uation permits this to be done with good and 
But if the soil Ja springy, or 
the time of packing in the silo—that is, the 
changes have improved its digestibility as 
much as fermentation ha6 reduced its weight 
of dry substance. Some have figured an in¬ 
crease in food value, but this would be equiv¬ 
alent to the production of something from 
nothing unless the lncreaee is produced by a 
chemical change which renders some of tbe 
constituents more digestible or palatable. 
Plan of a Bllo.—(See Page 233.) 
That our readers may get a clear idea of the 
plan of building silos, in convenient form, of 
concrete, we give the outline of a ground plan 
for a triple silo—the inside of each being 16 
feet wide by 32 feet long and 16 feet deep. 
8, 8 represent the standards—three by six- 
inch scantling—placed inside of the proposed 
walls, edges to the wall, making them Btiffer 
sidewise. These standards are placed mostly 
in pairs (one on each side of the wall) and 
three inches farther apart than the wall is to be 
thick and reaching some inches above the top 
of the wall (about 17 feet long). The pairs of 
standards are about eight feet apart. Tbe 
boxing planks (represented by tbe lines inside 
the standards) may moBt conveniently be one 
and a half inch thick by 14 Inches wide and 16 
feet loDg, except those on the outside of the 
end walls, which must be 17* feet long. The 
walls, being 16 feet high, should be 16 inches 
thick if made of concrete. Wail made of con¬ 
crete is stronger than an ordinary stone wall 
built by a mason. The doors are represented 
by the letters d.d.d. The boxing planksextend 
across these doors. 
We give a plan for a triple silo because many 
farms require storage of this capacity (about 
185 tons for each silo, or 555 tone), and if less 
storage is needed, two may be built, or one if 
that is all that is needed. If more than one Is 
required and less than two of this capacity, 
then it would be better to build two side by 
side, 25 feet long, than to build one 50 feet 
ENSILAGE—ITS APPLICATION TO MILK 
AND MEAT PRODUCTION. 
easy drainage, 
If the silo is to be sunk in slate or shale rock 
which permits the water to pass freely through 
It so ae to produce a pressure of water on the 
bottom, it is difficult to make the bottom 
water-tight without cutting a free drain on the 
outside of the wall and some inches J^low the 
bottom, so ae to conduct tbe water off. It is 
better not lo go deeper in any case than can 
be easily drained. It is also most convenient 
not to have the bottom of the silo below the 
level of the feeding floor of the basement stable. 
If two to four feet are excavated, this earth 
can be used to bank up on the back end of the 
Bilos for an elevated drive-way for setting the 
cutter or for delivering the green fodder. 
The excavation should be at least 18 Inches 
beyond the propoeed wall for convenience of 
working. Having got tho bottom leveled, set 
the {standards 19 inches apart (this will give 
a space between the 1 oxing planks of 16 
inches), care being taken that the edge of 
the inside standard next the boxing be straight. 
To hold the standards firmly in place, nail a 
lath across the under ends ; this will prevent 
them from spreading, leaving the lath under 
the wall and offering no obstruction to the re¬ 
moval of the standards after the wall is built. 
Now a bracket should be nailed across the top 
and the pair of standards set accurately plumb 
on the inside edge and eolidly stay-lathed In 
that position. When the standards are all set 
about the proposed walls, and the boxing planks 
are all placed, we are ready for 
Preparing the Concrete. 
The first tier on the bottom of the wall should 
be made wholly with water-lime concrete, as 
follows Mix well one part of Akron or Ro£- 
endale cement with three parts of fine sand, 
while dry. You may now mix in also three or 
W. 8TBWAKT. 
PROFESSOR B 
Stock feedino, for one purpose or another, 
is the greatest agricultural industry of the 
United 8tates, the dairy and beef, pork, mut¬ 
ton and wool products of which amount to a 
round thousand millions per year. Any Im¬ 
provement in feeding which shall cheapen this 
Immense production even five per cent. Is well 
worthy of careful consideration. Every stock 
feeder considers himself fortunate when the 
long Winter is over and his animals begin to 
feed upon tbe fresh, vigorous-growing grasses 
in Spring. Their old coats disappear and the 
fine, silken, glossy covering indicative of 
thrift and health, returns. GrasB 1 b the typical 
food of our domestic animals. "All flesh is 
grass," and the great stndv of the stock-hus-. 
band man has been how to preserve grass in the 
oest way for use during the cold season. The 
term * ‘ grass ” in its broadest significance in¬ 
cludes neariy all our cultivated grains—Indian 
corn, sorghum, millet, etc., as well as our 
meadow and pasture grasses. The old and 
universal method of preservation by drying in¬ 
creases the woody fiber so as to render it much 
less digestible than in its green state. 
Antiquity or Ensilage. 
Some 20 years ago tbe custom of Austro- 
Hungarian farmers of pitting green fodder In 
the earth began to attract attention. It had 
been practiced by them for 50 years or more; 
in fact, according to some of tbe early Roman 
agricultural writers, grain and fodder were 
pitted by the farmers of Italy at an early period 
of history. 8o the modern silo is not quite a 
new discovery, but rather the improvement of 
an old one. This practice of tbe Hungarians 
spread into Germany and thence into France. 
The latter country has made the greatest pro¬ 
gress in its application. The Hungarian and 
German silos were simply pits dug in dry 
places of earth, eight to ten feet wide at the 
top. six to eight feet wide at tbe bottom, six 
to eight feet deep, and as long as suited the 
convenience of the makers. The green fodder 
—Indian corn, rye, rape, vetch, clover, or 
grass—was laid in the pit. trodden firmly on 
tbe top and piled some five to eight feet above 
the surface of the ground, Jike the cone of a 
potato heap. This top was covered with straw, 
and then the earth thrown out of the pit was 
banked upon and over the top to the depth of 
18 to 24 inches. This covering of earth was 
compacted so firmly as to exclude the air, and 
furnished a heavy cover which settled with the 
fodder in the pit; bnt in settling it was liable 
to crack and let in the air, so that attention 
was required to fill these cracks and compress 
the earth. 
The French greatly improved upon the sys¬ 
tem of silos by building Bolid, air-tight walls 
of masonry above ground, or partly above and 
partly below the surface of the ground; and, 
instead of covering the top with earth, a 
weighted cover of planks Is used, which settles 
with the fodder in the silo, giving a constant 
pressure, and thus excluding the air without 
liability of mixing dirt with the fodder. This 
cover, with constant pressure, is the great im¬ 
provement made by M. Auguste Goffart in the 
elio; and to him also Is the system of ensilage 
indebted for the practice of cutting the green 
fodder into short lengths so us to cause it to 
pack more solidly iu the bUo, and when taken 
out to be In convenient form for feeding. 
When this form of silo is operated expertly the 
green food should not pass beyond the saccha¬ 
rine Btage of fermentation, and when taken 
from the silo and exposed to the air the alco¬ 
holic fermentation soon begins. In this state 
the ensilage (preserved fodder) Is In its best 
condition tor feeding, and its food value is 
probably equal to what It would have been at 
four parts of clean gravel \ now mix into thin 
mortar, and place a layer of this mortar, two 
or three inches thick, in the bottom of the 
wall box, and If you have cobble or rough 
stones, or any irregular Btones picked from the 
field, bed these in the mortar, taking care not 
to let them come quite out to the boxing plank. 
Use all the Stone you can get in, taking care to 
have a layer of mortar between them; tamp it 
all down Bolid so as to have no spaces in tho 
wall. Fill the boxing to the top, using a layer 
of mortar and a layer of stone alternately. 
For the next layer of wall, and all above, mix 
as follows One part of cement with six of 
fine sand, while dry. Mix in four parts of 
gravel as before. Have a vat of quick-limo, 
WHAT ABOUT SILOS! 
No doubt hundreds of the readers of the 
Rural are seriously considering the question 
whether or not to build a silo and bow corn 
fodder enough to fill it. Many certainly are 
looking to us to find encouragement to go 
ahead and spend *300 to $500 in putting down 
a pit or building a silo, and In preparing for 
making sauer-kraut for cows on a great Beale. 
The Rural Is certainly not blindly conserva- 
1 jve. It sees good in new things all the time ; 
in fact, It may be regarded ds progressive some- 
