The First Silo in Illinois
"In 1881, Oatman Brothers, of Dundee, Illinois, built the first silo in the state. At the eighth annual meeting of the Illinois State Dairyman's Association, held at Dundee, Illinois, December 14-16, 1881, Mr. E. J. Oatman read an article on "Silos and Ensilage.""
Mr. Oatman stated that some agricultural paper in Chicago had been agitating the building of silos in Illinois and had tried to induce him to build one. The stories that the paper told about the value of ensilage as a feed sounded too good to be true. The idea of cutting up green fodder, packing it away in a hole, and expecting to see it come out in first class condition, in the dead of winter, seemed to be impossible. A great many objections arose to such "cow kraut" as some called it. It would heat, ferment, and rot; therefore it was a very difficult matter to make people see its value as a feed.
Mr. Oatman, however, visited the farm of Messrs. Whitman and Burrell at Little Falls, New York, on February 1, 1880, for the purpose of seeing their silo and the condition of their ensilage. He made a thorough investigation and thereupon became convinced that ensilage was a success. He returned home to his farm at Dundee and made preparations to build a silo. His first silo was 49 feet by 43 feet by 20 feet deep, dug out into the ground. It was divided into three parts, all of which were made of concrete.
After the silo was finished, Mr. Oatman proceeded to fill it, which required thirteen days with a force of ten men, at a rate of about twenty-three tons per day. After it was filled, stone was placed on top, at the rate of about 150 pounds per square inch.
Mr. Oatman met with many discouragements with his new silo; the community at large thought it was a very foolish idea. Some said that if it did keep, the cattle would not eat it, and others still more radical, even hoped that he would lose it all, and said that any man who would try such a thing was crazy.
When the time came to open the silo, Mr. Oatman found that the silage was all fresh and nice with the exception of a few inches on top. His cattle took to it readily, and he found that it greatly increased the milk production of his dairy herd.[9]
The use of ensilage as a feed for beef and milk production has become so general in Illinois since the first silo was built in 1881 that ensilage is now one of the staple feeds. While there are a few people who still think that the use of ensilage in the production of beef is a fad, practically every one agrees that it is economical in the production of milk.
Ensilage is a roughage and not a concentrate, and its profitableness in a fattening ration depends not so much upon its nutritive value as upon its succulence and palatability, the steers' ability to consume large quantities of it, and the fact that it makes possible the utilization of all of the corn plant, a large proportion of which would be wasted.
Every year sees a more general adoption of ensilage as a roughage, and with the inauguration of the present intensive system of baby beef production, and where the baby beeves are raised on the farm on which they are to be fed, ensilage is the most economical feed that can be used in maintaining the breeding herd.