UNIVERSAL PORTLAND CEMENT CO. 
7 
Silos and Silage 
The Advantages of Silos 
A silo on a farm is a mark of progress. No other building so well 
advertises the intent of the farmer to be progressive and up-to-date and 
no other building saves him so much money on the investment. The 
use of any reasonably good, comparatively air-tight silo pays. A good 
silo will pay as much as 100 per cent on the investment the first year. 
This is assuming, of course, that a reasonable number of cattle, horses, 
sheep or hogs are being fed. The silo saves all of the corn crop, 40 per cent 
of which would otherwise be wasted. In times of sudden rain, it fre- 
quently saves all the alfalfa crop which could be saved in no other manner 
except siloing it immediately. The silo eliminates troublesome corn stalks 
and elevates feeding, especially in winter, from back-breaking drudgery 
to a science. The silo is an asset: if built of permanent materials — it 
is a permanent asset. 
The advantages of silos are almost too great to enumerate; in fact, 
almost any practical farmer who has built a silo finds a new reason 
which proves further its economy and necessity. No other building holds 
so much feed for such a small cost. To illustrate: A silo 60 feet high, 
14 feet in inside diameter, will hold approximately 400 tons and such a 
silo has cost, all contractor's profits included, $800. Where else could 
$800 be invested in a building which would hold, safely and securely, 
proof against time, elements, fire, and vermin (for this was a substantial 
reinforced concrete silo with roof and chute), 400 tons of green, succulent 
fodder, and keep it not only two or three months but, if necessary, for 
two or three years? No other building but the silo will house so imuch 
for so little cost. This fact bankers as well as farmers should remember. 
Nowhere else is there so safe a loan which will do as much ultimate good 
to the community. When the banker loans a farmer money to build a 
silo, of a permanent rnaterial, such as concrete, the money will be in- 
vested in a valuable improvement, immediately increasing the value of 
the property. 
A silo, nowadays, is used sometimes more in summer than in winter. 
There is no reason why a certain amount of silage cannot be fed successfully 
every day in the year; pastures, even in the most fertile parts of Illinois, 
Indiana, and Iowa, burned up one year under a rainfall in certain 
districts less than that of the Sahara Desert. At other times the fields 
are covered by floods, and blue grass or other pasture, however good, is 
destroyed. The early part of the year, 1913, when for nearly six months 
precipitation in Champaign County, Illinois, was less than 1% inches, and 
the floods in the Ohio River Valley in the earlier part of that year where 
not only fields, but bridges and buildings were destroyed, should also be 
remembered. 
The permanent silo, particularly, spells crop insurance. It makes 
