Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/232

222 My studies of ensilage have for some time past been directed to methods of preventing acidity and securing a desirable degree of uniformity in quality, and thus far the results are, to say the least, encouraging. The experimental silo at the Massachusetts experiment station was made under my direction, on the plan of the wooden silo described above. It was filled in two and a half days with over seventeen tons of fodder-corn, cut in one and a fourth inch lengths, and thoroughly packed as it was put in. A tight cover made of two thicknesses of planed boards and planks was put on, and loaded with barrels of earth that were estimated to give a pressure of over sixty pounds per square foot. For convenience of access to the interior of the mass, a gas-pipe one and a fourth inch in diameter was driven through a hole in the middle of the cover, to the depth of four feet, the upper end being carefully packed to make a tight connection with the planks of the cover, and the upper end was closed with a plug.

When the cover was put on, September 8th, the temperature was 82° Fahr., two feet below the surface. Observations were made from time to time, of the temperature and rate of settling, as recorded in the following table: