54 



HOW TO BUILD A SILO. 



On the Form of Silos. 



The first kind of silos built, in this country or abroad, 

 were simply holes or pits in the ground, into which the 

 fodder was dumped, and the pit was then covered with a 

 layer of dirt and, sometimes at least, weighted with 

 planks and stones. Then, when it was found that a large 

 proportion of the feed would spoil by this crude method, 

 separate silo structures were built, first of stone, and 

 later on, of wood, brick or cement. As previously stated, 

 the first separate silos built were rectangular, shallow 

 structures, with a door opening at one end. The silos of 

 the French pioneer Siloist, August Goffart, were about 

 16 feet high and 40x16 feet at the bottom. Another French 

 silo built about fifty years ago, was 206x21^ feet and 15 

 feet deep, holding nearly 1,500 tons of silage. Silos of a 

 similar type, but of smaller dimensions, were built in 

 this country in the early stages of silo building. Experi- 

 ence has taught siloists that it was necessary to weight 

 the fodder heavily in these silos, in order to avoid the 

 spoiling of large quantities of silage. In Goffart's silos, 

 boards were thus placed on top of the siloed fodder, and 



