48 
CONCRETE SILOS 
time of the fire hay was selUng at $15 per ton. Had it been possible for 
him to have substituted a daily ration of 40 pounds of hay per cow for the 
40 pounds of silage and 10 pounds of hay being fed, the cost would have 
been no less than $4,000. Mr. Main could not, however, have purchased 
the dry feed with which to have fed his herd through the season; even had 
that been possible, the hauling of a sufficient quantity of dry feed a con- 
siderable distance over bad roads would have been impractical, according 
to his statement. The only course left open would have been to dispose of 
his cattle, which would have meant a large loss. 
The cost of Mr. Main's silage was estimated at $1.12 per ton, or a 
total of $593.60. The silo cost $750 complete. The total cost, therefore, of 
silo and silage as they stood at the time of the fire was about $1,343.60, Had 
the silage been destroyed, the cost of substituting dry feed would have 
amounted to about three times the cost of the concrete silo and its con- 
tents. These figures are sufficient to convince the thoughtful farmer of the 
desirability of putting up fireproof silos. 
The reinforced concrete silos shown on pages 46 and 47 successfully 
resisted disastrous fires and the silo on page 48 successfully resisted a 
cyclone. The silos on the Dunham farm were exposed to a very severe 
test, as a wooden dairy barn adjoining burned when the entire second 
story was full of hay and other combustible material. The fire rushed up 
the empty silo to the right of the picture, which was not protected with 
a chute, and the flames roared out the top, making a huge chimney of 
this silo. Concrete withstood this extreme fire test, however, and the 
silos were ready for use as soon as they had cooled off from the heat. 
The McCoy silo shown on page 47 successfully resisted a severe fire 
which destroyed the barn and all other buildings, hardly a trace of which 
remained, as shown in the illustration. 
After Cyclone of July 26, 1913, at Frankfort, KentucHy. Eighty-one large barns were blown down. 
This Polk System concrete silo was undamaged, nor were other concrete silos in the vicinity harmed. 
" They are not built of pieces and they cannot go to pieces. " 
