Concrete and the Silo
A silo is a tank for the preservation of fodder in its green state, for feeding stock at times when there is no natural pasture—that is in winter and in the hot, dry months of summer. By the use of silos fodder is canned very much as a housewife cans fruit or vegetables.
Concrete fulfils every requirement for a first-class silo, providing the added advantages of being absolutely fireproof and everlasting, possessed by silos built of no other material. For instruction in building silos, see Bulletin No. 21 of the Association of American Portland Cement Manufacturers, sent free on application.
Space does not permit us to go fully into the construction of a concrete silo and we can only give the requirements for a good silo, and show how concrete fills them all.
Silos must be air-tight. The admission of air causes the fodder to mould, and the stock will not eat it.
Air cannot leak through a concrete silo.
Silos must be water-tight. If they are not, the juices, so necessary to keep the fodder green, will leak out, and the fodder spoils.
Concrete, properly mixed, is water-tight.
Silos must be smooth on the inside. A silo with a rough inside surface, catches the cornstalks, and prevents proper packing.
Concrete can be made so smooth that many firms building silos of other materials finish the inside with a coat of cement and sand.
The fodder lasts better if kept at an even temperature. Concrete does not conduct heat or cold. It keeps the heat in the fodder in winter, and keeps the heat out of the fodder in summer. Nature provides the fodder with the proper amount of heat to preserve it perfectly.
Rats nesting in the silage ruin it.
Concrete is the greatest rat-proof material known.
In addition to these reasons, concrete silos are not attacked by the juices coming from the fodder. They do not rot by alternate wetting and drying.
Fire, that greatest of farm scourges, cannot destroy the crop if stored in a concrete silo. A farmer may rebuild a barn, but the crops lost through the burning of the building are lost forever.
