The Pioneer Silo Movement in Puyallup

As I write, the team is passing into the barn with another load of lumber for the silo, 12x20 feet, 17 feet high. The tar paper is bought to line it inside and out; the workmen are engaged to put it up before harvest, now so fast at hand, the whole to cost but a trifle over a hundred dollars, and to hold two hundred tons of ensilage. While I crave the honors of pioneership in Washington for this new departure, I would only too willingly divide them with Mr. Whitney or any others that can and will join in this 'new hobby,' as Churchill said in his letter the other day, so cheap, so certain to give good returns, and so easily within reach of almost any farmer keeping a dozen cows or less. We began late in June to plow for rutabagas. I do not from choice plant any—sugar beets, or carrots, or parsnips either would have been better, but the land was too wet to plow until now, when it is too late for these crops. So rather than let the land lie idle, I will plant it in rutabagas or what is here known as the Swedish turnip. Recently, looking over things at Puyallup, I saw one of the boys wheeling out rutabagas to the stock hogs. Some of the beets were as sound as the day they were harvested. This was on the 1st of June; of course, it would not be desirable to feed them so late as that, after the grass and clover had come abundantly, but it shows that, if properly prepared, we may have them to feed all winter.