THE HISTORY OF SILOING. 25 1 



patterned more particularly after the silos built by 

 Goffart the great French siloist whose work is again 

 referred to. His silos were 39.4 ft long, 16.4 ft 

 broad and 16.4 ft deep and they were much circled at 

 the ends. But the laboriousness of the process made 

 it irksome to those who adopted it, and, because of 

 this, American ingenuity set to work to emancipate 

 the siloist from the bondage of so much hard labor 

 when curing green food. The result has been that 

 the adaptation of the silo to the needs of the general 

 farmer has been almost entirely the outcome of 

 American skill. 



The Modern Silo. — When silos first began to 

 be built on the modern plan, that is to say on the 

 plan of a structure rather than on that of an under- 

 ground pit it was deemed necessary to make the walls 

 of stone and to excavate so that the silo would be, 

 in part at least, below the level of the ground. And 

 even as late as 1885, the practice of covering with 

 boards and then weighting with earth or stones was 

 universal. The idea of making these structures 

 narrow and deep so that pressure would be secured 

 from the silage itself had not yet dawned on the 

 minds of experimenters. The cost of the structures 

 then used was so great and the mode of filling the 

 silo and feeding the silage so cumbrous that it was 

 feared by many that the silo would be helpful only 

 to those possessed of considerable means, rather than 

 to the great mass of farmers. 



It would be interesting to know more of the 

 successes and failures in building silos and making 

 silage during that peculiarly tentative period in 

 American siloing between 1880 and 1890. To get 



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