BRICK BUILT SILO. 



Although costly buildings, as we have endeavoured to 

 show in previous pages, are by no means necessary for silage 

 making, nevertheless where silage is to be gone in for on a 

 large scale and the process is to become a permanent insti- 

 tution, to our mind the brick built silo recommends itself. 

 (fig. I.). If good bricks can be made or purchased cheap, 

 an excellent silo can be made at a .reasonable cost. The 

 foundation for such a silo may, if the material is procurable, 

 be made of stone. The greatest outward pressure is on the 

 lower walls, so that it is to the substantial construction of 

 this part that we must pay most attention. By allowing the 

 silo to extend down for some feet beneath the ground level, 

 the lower walls or foundations have the support of the 

 soil on the outside. Wherever possible, therefore, the bot- 

 tom of this sort of silo should be as deep down as possible 

 without causing the operation of emptying the silage to be 

 inconvenient. Six feet is not too much. The underground 

 walls should be two feet thick, and are best made of stone. 

 Boulders and cement is not nearly so good as quarried 

 rock. If only the former are obtainable, however, some 

 method of strengthening, by rods, for instance, must 

 be resorted to. This wall and higher wall have to 

 be thoroughly solid so as to prevent the entrance of air. 

 In some formations it may be found necessary to lay a drain 

 to protect this foundation. Sometimes a concrete wall is 

 found as a foundation. A floor of concrete is recommended. 

 If proposed silo be 24 feet deep, 18 feet will be above 

 ground and this 18 feet wall may be made of brick 14 inches 

 thick ; towards the top less will suffice. The greater the 

 diameter the thicker must be the walls. 



Doors, through which to fill and empty silo, should be 

 made in the wall every 5-8 feet apart. If there is no 

 necessity that all the doors should face one way, as is the 

 case when the silo is built adjoining the stables, this source 

 of weakness in the walls is avoided by having the doors on 

 opposite sides of the silo. However arranged it is impera- 

 tive that they should be well fitted, otherwise air gets in 

 and silage is harmed. Even then, they are a source of weak- 

 ness, so that it is usual to have the rods imbedded in the 

 wall, anchored at both ends between each door. 



The frame for those doors should be of 4 x 8 inch wood, 

 rabbited two inches deep in the inside, against which the 

 door, made of 1 x 6 inch tongued and grooved boards, 

 screwed together with a la} r er of waterproof or tarred paper 

 between the two, lies. On the outside of this framework 



