Concrete Silos 



CHAPTER I 



WHY BUILD A SILO ? 



The silo is not a fad. It has proven its right to a 

 place in any intelligent scheme of agricultural econom- 

 ics, and it has therefore come to stay. 



Coming first into existence as a mere hole in the 

 ground, the silo has developed into a structure on which 

 it is worth while to expend engineering ability and 

 architectural skill. Many things have been attributed 

 to Caesar and his strategists as the result of military 

 necessity in the prosecution of his famous campaigns. 

 Some of these are recorded in his own Commentaries, 

 while others have perhaps a less stable historical foun- 

 dation on which to rest. Our reading of the Seven 

 Books is too far in the past to allow of a definite state- 

 ment as to whether the famous general himself records 

 the use of pit silos for the preservation of forage along 

 his lines of march; but such have been attributed to 

 him, and the statement sounds plausible, at any rate. 



The silo has been likened to a giant fruit jar. Ap- 

 parently this idea, too, is not a new one, for it is stated 

 that the early Egyptians, many years before the Chris- 

 tian era, put a part of their crops in large stone jars 

 for preservation, covering them as tightly as possible 

 to exclude the air. The Mound Builders and other 



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