284 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Question : I would like to ask the professor what is his idea in 

 making a silo of extending it down five or six feet in the ground. 

 Would it be better than if the silo was on top of the ground ? 



Mr. Van Pelt : Your question was in regard to digging down 

 into the ground and allowing the silage to be placed in there? 

 There is one disadvantage to that. If the character of the ground 

 is proper it is a very good thing. There is no part of the silo that 

 can be built as cheaply as the part beneath the ground, but there 

 is one thing that needs to be taken into consideration there and 

 that is that the drainage of your ground must be perfect. If the 

 water stand in the ground it is bound to soak through the walls of 

 your silo and ruin the silage beneath the ground. Then, too, if that 

 portion of your silo is so far beneath the ground it is difficult to 

 pitch the silage out in the winter time, but if your silo extends 

 down five or six feet it is all right provided your ground is well 

 drained and no water can soak into the silo. 



Mr. Baer: Is it not possible to mix the cement and sand so as 

 to exclude moisture from getting through into the silage? 



Mr. Van Pelt : It is very difficult with that portion of the silo 

 below the ground. The last few years I understand that people 

 having cement silos mix some cement with water making a wash 

 to wash the inside of the silo, and that makes it possible to keep the 

 water out of the silo and the silage will keep well, but my experi- 

 ence has shown it is almost impossible to hold the water out of 

 the silo. I know of one silo in Illinois dug down eight feet below 

 the ground and it was impossible to keep the water out of that 

 silo, so we simply put in a false floor and after tliat we did not 

 use the part below the ground at all. If we had an outlet by 

 which we could drain the water out from along the silo it would 

 have been all right but that was impossible. 



Member : How would you have a wooden silo constructed, stave 

 or frame? 



JMr. Van Pelt : I think a stave silo is the most economical sort 

 of silo at the present time. They are made by manufacturers who 

 have the machinery with which to make the staves, and when we 

 consider the amount of material necessary for putting up a silo 

 in any other form, as compared with the price of stave silos of good 

 quality, undoubtedly you will find the stave silo is not only more 

 efficient but more economical. 



Member : Do you have any treatment on the inside ? 



