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Holland, Indiana (SW IN) | Were laying tile --a bunch of brick was on top the ground-- brought up the discussion at lunch how were the first silo's filled?, and then we discussed how was corn (I guess)---or possibly some other crop--- chopped to get it ready to ensile. FWIW the brick in question should have been buried by my brother in 1978 but it is very hard to estimate how deep a hole needed to bury a bunch of brick and other rock when digging the hole with a CAT D4D---- WTF I'm sure he did better than I would do. That silo had to been built in the 1800's
FWIW some of the silo's we have buried were made of wood some brick and some white staves --Heck we weren't prejudice we burned and buried all of our ancestors stuff.
We were all guessing steam engine ---but how did they get the product chopped into little pieces and up into an upright silo -- at least 30' tall.
Not earth shattering to make any one $ --but I said NAT will come through
Love NAT Dan |
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Eastern Iowa | Good question, I just made a sliding barn door for my wifes kitchen out of redwood from a wooden silo that was standing in a barn that I believe was built in the late 1800s. My dad used to pitch corn silage out of it in the early 50s. I have a picture of the farm with horse draw equipment sitting around and the barn is there, not sure if the wooden silo was in the barn at that time. |
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| We had an old silage chopper blower that sat in the shed for years. It basicly looked like a modern blower, but it had knives on the front face of the blower wheel, and a conveyor to feed whole stalks in to it to chop them up. I assume they cut the corn by hand, unless they could use a binder. Don't know if that would work on green corn.
The blower had a flat belt pulley on the back. Don't know if it would have been run with a steam engine or early tractor. |
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near dyersville iowa | i dont know if i can get pics, but ive got an old model t engine in the pasture. modified to a blower assembly. not sure it was for silage though. |
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barry county mi | My uncle would bale hay green and haul to silo and he had a siliage chopper maybe prapeck or I dont recal the name of the chopper -blower . Cut twine and feed the wet hay bales or corn stocks by hand acording to the tractor horsepower and it was belt driven . It was slow but it was feed. and my grand dad would put a bottle with a cork in it with a small pin hole and that winter pop would have som drink that would knock his britches off ha ha. My uncle Harold Matlick is still alive 90 plus years old didnt quit working till about 5 years ago. Hes in a rest home now my aunt is gone now Quite a family ww11 vet run a gun crew an the liberty ships supplying troops in europe mostly archie |
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north east ohio in the snow belt Ashtabula co | Back in the 60s the neighbors cut green corn with a binder, hauled to the silo on a flat bed wagon and hand fed into a chopper blower run by a belt off a john deere A. 50 foot open top MARTIN steel silo . Amish still do it that way.
That's all i got to say about that |
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SW “Ohia” | Dan Loehr,
Corn was cut and tied in the field with a horse drawn or tractor drawn binder. These bundles were then hauled to the silo. A flat-belt driven chopper/blower was setup there. Bundles were thrown onto a conveyor that pulled them in.
I have a binder and always get a kick out of using it. Amazing machine.
Now, the job I have always wondered is filling the corn crib before elevators and engines came around. Some of them are awfully tall for a scoop shovel.
Edited by Red Paint 2/2/2017 17:27
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| I helped pitch silage out of the silo when I was a kid. We had a 30' silo and it never had an unloaded in it. Acctually, I think it was groung ear corn most of the time. Seems like we only put silage in it once or so.
Edited by thefarmers 2/2/2017 17:09
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West Chazy, New York | There were silos before the days of blowers, but they were mostly pits dug into a bank. I have seen a few pictures of bank barns with a silo in the middle (not much taller than the roof of the barn. The bank would have gotten the load most of the way up; I don't know if they built a ramp or used the hay hoist somehow. Either way it would have been a slow job, but they probably only needed feed for a few dozen head at the most. |
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Dallas Center IA 515-720-2463 | It was a lot of work. Lucky me as I was born late enough.
I remember the silo being filled by the corn binder in the field, then chopped by a cutter at the silo.
That would have been a few years before 1948.
Dad hired a custom operator with forage harvester and silage blower in 1948.
In 1949 he purchased a brand new Allis-Chalmers forage
harvester and a blower.
I assume some green corn was cut with corn knifes, hauled to a silo and ran thru a silage cutter to fill silos. But I doubt much was done that way.
A corn binder was used to cut the green corn. Then the bundles were loaded onto a hay rack.
Hauled to the silo, where the bundles were ran thru the cutter.
The cutter blowed the chopped corn into the silo.
Corn binder:
A U-Tube of one running:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA3zbJNvWuo
Binders were first pulled with horses. Hence ground driven.
The binder in the U-Tube is ground drive.
Later there were PTO corn binders. And ones that did two rows.
You will see nice pretty pictures of corn in shocks. That corn is not going into a silo, but is left in the field to finish drying.
In the winter it was hauled in and feed to cattle.
For a silo the green corn shocks were loaded onto a hayrack right away.
There may have been a bundle carrier on the binder. Held a few bundles, so they could be dropped in one place. Made for less work.
Also I have seen pictures of a corn binder working with a elevator along side. Being pulled along side was a hayrack.
Like loading bales on a rack pulled behind a square baler - A lot less work than picking them up off of the ground.
Just saw pictures, I have never seen a side loader.
The Cutter at the silo:
The cutter was much like a silage blower, just had knives to cut the corn. Then paddles blew it on up into the silo.
The bundles were laid on a chain conveyor, feed rolls pressed it down and feed the bundle into the knives.
The cutter was belt powered. I doubt if much was don’t in the steam days. Pretty sure most cutters were tractor powered, or gas engine.
I remember a big crew. Dad filled his father in law’s trench silo as well. And several brother in laws were there on the crew.
The trench silo was filled by hanging the blower pipe on telephone poles along the side of the silo.
Will see if I can find a picture of a silage cutter, will then post it.
Found some pictures.
Top one is a ground driven one row binder. It has a bundle carrier.
Second picture is a two row PTO powered binder.
Lower picture is a silage cutter. At the silo, not doing corn. But he best I could find.
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NEOh | My dad had an AC forage harvester with a direct cut head. He cut red clover and filled with that. An AC table blower put it up. Wagon had drawbacks which pulled the material to the back and then it was fork time by hand. Forks were hoe shaped to pull the clover off the wagon. Blower was powered by a flat belt running off a JD B. Getting it out of the silo was all manual labor. Not pleasant when it froze to the outside of the silo and you had to cut it with an ax. Went to corn silage in the 1970's, same wagons and blower. Same unloading method. He used that all the way into the 90's when he sold his cows.
Art |
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SW “Ohia” | Robert W Greif,
Thanks for the insight! I always appreciate your comments!
I have seen a lot of binders in photos and at shows, and never seen a two-row. Not even a mention of one. Do you have any pictures?
Do you remember when the bundles were thrown on the conveyor, was the string removed?
My binder is setup for a carrying table but it was gone when I bought it.
Edited by Red Paint 2/2/2017 17:30
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SE PA | https://youtu.be/wDvyKdfjil0
https://youtu.be/HG-WPWFsgtM
Edited by discbinedr 2/2/2017 17:35
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Garland Maine | Red Paint - 2/2/2017 18:29
Do you remember when the bundles were thrown on the conveyor, was the string removed?
Thats from before my time. My Dad talked about it, but I never asked about the string. My guess based on how CHEAP the old timers were that they would untie the string and use it over again. ;) |
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Dallas Center IA 515-720-2463 | discbinedr in a RE below posted a link to a good U-Tube of Amish cutting green corn with a horse pulled binder.
And loading the bundles onto a rack pulled along the side.
Corn Binder working:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDvyKdfjil0&feature=youtu.be
U-Tube of Cutter operating:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DReIoKddRAE
Two things a bit off in the U-Tube.
First he says “The binder had trouble cutting the corn because it is a lot taller than in the old days”
Wrong - double wrong! Todays hybrid corn is a lot shorter than the pre WW II corn.
Harder for the binder because it is a whole lot thicker. 30,000 vs 12,000 or so
Second talks about the belt being crossed. Says to get rotation right. And correct on that.
But a crossed belt pulls better than one not crossed. If you have a choice, cross it. |
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100 miles north of the NYC crapper | I remember us having a papec cutter blower. Don't remember using it for silo filling but my father and grandfather use it for to process old hay or straw into bedding. It was always called "the bedding blower"
My earlies memories of filling silo about 1959-60 is a pull type chopper chopping into wagons with 2 cables along the floor that when hooked up to a electric motor transmission that pulled the front gate of the wagon towards the back and the silage had to be pulled down with forks acting like beaters on a modern forage wagon. Had a long table blower powered by a Farmall H which by the way still sets in the shed. We had a wooden silo too that I only remember filling it once because it was in bad shape leaning. It had two cables keeping it from falling on the barn. Pulled it over and used the wooden staves on various building projects.... still some can be found here and there. That lumber has to be 70-80 years old.
Edited by nyjim 2/2/2017 18:12
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Elizabethtown,KY | I'm 68 and when I was about 10 my Pappaw helped his neighbor haul in bundles of green corn (several other farmers helped and did this all around the neighborhood) on hay racks. It had been cut with a binder pulled by a tractor, at the silo was a Papec ensilage cutter pulled by an M Farmall and a flat belt. There was one team of horses on a rack and I was allowed to drive it back to the field when it was empty, that was the only time I ever drove a team.
The Amish here still fill silo that way, but they have a Diesel engine power unit that they use on the cutter.
We had a chopper and blower on our farm even when I was the age that I saw the old time way done when I stayed at Pappaw's that summer. I believe the chopper we had was either a no.6 or 8 Deere 1 row, I think we later had a no. 12, after that we had a Gehl chopper. We had wagons with a false front gate,cables on the floor and a roller on the back that was driven with an electric motor with a reduction gear on it. |
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Dallas Center IA 515-720-2463 | Don’t remember about the twine.
And do not remember ever being real close to the cutter while it was running.
I bet Mom did not want me near. Too much chance of getting hurt.
But I doubt if it was removed.
Also something that was done in the old days when filling a silo.
In the cutter U-Tube below you can see a spout hanging down from the elbow at the top. These were called Barrels.
Had short chains on them and the barrels were tapered. Could make a long string of them.
There would be somebody up inside the silo. barrels hanging almost of the way down. And a rope tied onto the lower barrel.
The person inside would walk around the silo as it was being filled. Moving the point were the silage was landing.
And by walking on it, packing it down.
A dirty job.
Could be a Urban Legend, I guess Rural Legend.
But I have heard older farmers talking about having a horse, mule or whatever in the silo.
Walking the animal around to pack the silage down.
When done, Shoot the horse and over the side he went.
I don’t know. |
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north-central Indiana west of Fulton | Dad got a new AC chopper and blower , and made self unloading wagons from flat beds sometime in the 50s. The wagons unloaded by rolling a canvas along the floor powered by an electric motor and reduction gear. He did several silos in the area and had to move the silo pipe on each silo.
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northern chester county PA | Dad told about the time he and my uncles bought cobey wagons with the cables to pull the false front forward .
They only bought one electric power unit . Grandfather would shuttle between the 2 farms (about 3.5 miles) with the pickup truck . By the time dad had his wagon empty pop would take it to uncles place , they would have a load . I believe they only did it that way one year !
Cyclone A without live PTO on a papec chopper . He said all you did was fight the shifter trying to pull it into neutral in good corn
Other thing I remember was him telling about the time the local JD dealer brought in a 112 chuck wagon for dad to try . Well it only took one load to convince him he didnt want to use the cobey wagons any more !
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Camp Douglas Wi. 40miles nw of wi. dells | I guess I'm the lucky one here; Dad had cornchopper with false end gate wagons that had pipe in the back of the wagon with cables bolted to it that run to the front of wagon hooked to front end skid wall, hooked unloading jack to the pipe and the cable would wrap on the pipe and pull back the front skid, then I would stand behind the long hopper blower with silage fork feeding the chopped corn into the blower.
Then in the winter Dad and I forked it all out of the silo, 14'x40'.
When We got done fillin our silo, I got shipped down to Grampa,s (my Mothers folks) Grampa had the grain binder out and had the corn cut and bundled on the ground, Grandma drove the F12 pulling the wagon, Grampa and I loaded the corn bundles, then we headed up to the silo filler with the F20 on the belt, Grampa and I would feed the bundles into the silo filler; here,s the best part Grampa had to take the first bundle apart and feed it in slow until the governor opened up on the F20, than feed one bundle after the other rest of the load, Grampa got a big thrill out of that as that F20 was his biggest tractor at the time.
Some great times with my grandparents.
Dan
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Floyd County, Iowa | Red Paint - 2/2/2017 16:59
Now, the job I have always wondered is filling the corn crib before elevators and engines came around. Some of them are awfully tall for a scoop shovel.
Before engines, they used a "horse power" to run the ear corn elevator. The horses were harnessed to the "horse power" vertical shaft. That went down to a 90 degree open gear. Then a jackshaft come off that and went to the elevator to turn the bottom drive sprocket (like a pto).
I helped one time and an "old time" demonstration. The ear corn was shoveled out of the flare box into the elevator drag, and the horses just walked around the "horse power", stepping over the jackshaft when they came to it.
Not sure, but I think the "horse power" came about at the same time as the elevator, but I could be wrong on that part.
I tried finding a picture of a "horse power", but can't find one, so there must be another name for it. I only knew it as a "horse power".
edit: I found this similar operation. The one shown is a permanent operation, with the jackshaft underground, but the ones I've seen are portable, and only take a half hour or less to set up, and only needed 2 horses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbTNtCWXccQ
.
Edited by oldbones 2/2/2017 19:01
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Holland, Indiana (SW IN) | All I can say one heck of a lot of knowledge on NAT --- we probably will still have an argument at lunch tomorrow about something and possibly this.
Thanks
Dan
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Northeast Misery | Remember dad saying they would put 2 goats in the silo to pack. Goats were cheap... |
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E.Central MN | In the 60's our neighbors used a corn binder, loaded bundles on the flatbed wagon and hauled them to the silo where they used a long Allis chopper blower unit that was powered by a flat belt to a tractor. They just tossed the bundles on the flat conveyor, keeping them spaced apart enough so the blower could handle it.
In the 80's we bought a pair of 12 or 14' chopper boxes with the cable that pulled the front bulkhead backwards to unload out the back. The neighbor that we bought them from was kind of tight. After buying the wagons he asked if we wanted to buy the drive mechanism with the electric motor on it, so we paid him a little bit for it, thought maybe we'd use the motor on a bale conveyor. A day or two passed, he stopped in and said that he thought he should have extra for the solid rubber tires on it(like two wheelers have). About five years later another neighbor stopped in and asked if we had that unloading mechanism, yes, we bought it from the neighbor, do you need it(because we're never going to use it)? No, their dad had loaned the motor to the other neighbor and they wanted it back. Really, so we took the 1/3 hp motor off and gave it to them. There was probably a lesson that we should have learned in that deal somewhere... |
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53590 | After read through this I kept thinking .... And today we grumble when the a/c quits working on a tractor! |
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Embarrass WI | I don't remember ever seeing a silo filler being used 'for real' but I do remember being around when my Dad filled silos with false front wagons and a long hopper blower. Chopping was done with a chopper in the field. He would pull the wagon up a bit too far, drop the conveyor on the blower, back the wagon up a couple inches, hook up the ratchet to the wagon, and stand behind the wagon with a straw hook pulling the fodder out and into the conveyor. It was a happy day when he got the first self-unloading wagon. |
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Elizabethtown,KY | Dave, there is a chopper like the one in your pics in a shed on one of the farms I farm, it is a PTO model, and there is an Allis blower with the table and rubber belt in the bottom like the one in your pics, it was driven by a flat belt. We used the blower quite a bit before we got a short hopper PTO blower.
What is the AC unit powering the blower, is it a tractor or a power unit on wheels? |
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Dallas Center IA 515-720-2463 | The engine on a Allis-Chalmers blower was mounted on the axle.
It was a the engine used in the models B, C, CA tractors. You will see that engine powering rides at midways today.
Neighbor who had one told me the engine powered blower was a good deal. Far better than a belted tractor.
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north-central Indiana west of Fulton | Don, as Robert stated, the blower was powered by a 4 cylinder engine like the chopper. We later on added another chopper that had a pto drive. Also had a direct cut hay head. I remember green chopping sudax one summer with the 450 Farmall using that head. The engines were nearly impossible to start hot...or at least it seemed like it. |
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Nc ind | Man Dave seeing the pics of that allis one row chopper brings back memory's. Back in 67 dad bought 2kasten self unloading wagons. used the allis chopper to fill them couldn't move the spout just filled wagon cross corner man what work we done back in the day |
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Columbia Basin, Ephrata, WA | Robert W Greif - 2/2/2017 16:16
Don’t remember about the twine.
And do not remember ever being real close to the cutter while it was running.
I bet Mom did not want me near. Too much chance of getting hurt.
But I doubt if it was removed.
Also something that was done in the old days when filling a silo.
In the cutter U-Tube below you can see a spout hanging down from the elbow at the top. These were called Barrels.
Had short chains on them and the barrels were tapered. Could make a long string of them.
There would be somebody up inside the silo. barrels hanging almost of the way down. And a rope tied onto the lower barrel.
The person inside would walk around the silo as it was being filled. Moving the point were the silage was landing.
And by walking on it, packing it down.
A dirty job.
Could be a Urban Legend, I guess Rural Legend.
But I have heard older farmers talking about having a horse, mule or whatever in the silo.
Walking the animal around to pack the silage down.
When done, Shoot the horse and over the side he went.
I don’t know.
They called it tromping the silage, having a guy or two in the silo to direct the stream from the blower and walk around to tromp it down. It must have been one gawdawful hot, humid, miserable job. I hope they didn't have spider mites back then.
WAY before my time in the old neighborhood in western Oregon, the cast of characters included the notoriously cheap neighbor across the road, and a hired man with only one arm. Putting up silage was a great lot of work so various people worked together and/or hired extra help. Anyway, they were filling the cheap neighbor's silo and the one armed man took the job of tromping. So the silo got filled and when it was time to pay all the help, the cheap neighbor only payed the one armed man half as much as everyone else. It didn't matter that tromping only required one arm to run the rope and that the man had two feet, the cheap neighbor would only pay him half wages. Imagine how something like that would go over now.
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southern MN | The neighborhood got together and did manure days and silage chopping days.
4 of them.
For silage uncle had the chopper, I was a little kid of 5 o so the last time I saw the setup. It was kinda Oliver colors, or new idea, I don't remember green and orange or cream.
Pulled by his Oliver tractor.
After opening the field they turned tge spout (4 bolts) and then the other three neighbors and someone's kid would drive the wagons beside. They were all 100 bu wood barge boxes, converted for silage with the rear removed, sides added on, big flip end gate, and the wooden false front put in and cabled to the pipe bolted on the back.
Was a red long hopper blower, IHC I would imagine. It was belt drive, at our place dad put the Oliver 88 or the IHC H on it. Sure had a long belt on it.
To unload there was a pto shaft that would fit to the pipe on the back of the wagons, spin and wrap up the cable very slowly and pull that false wood front to the back. The other end ran to an old pickup,or car three speed tranny. It is on an old engine cart, I still have it here in a shed. The other end of the tranny went to a tractor pto. So it was 3 speed unload. I think high gear wasn't used.... The very last year my cousin had rigged up an electric motor and sub shafts to replace the tractor for this. I can't remember if they still used the tranny - it did offer a nice 'off' switch with the big gear stick...... No clutch tho so you couldn't shift it in, you need to use the tractor.
Dad liked to chop the corn off the sand hill, as it never yielded much grain. I'm not sure if that was a good thing or not. It was hard to put manure back on the sand; more valuable for the 'good' ground to grow something, so the sand kept getting mined.
Dad quit silage as the silo lost its air tight coating. Couple years later 2 of the others also slowed down, while the forth one got a lot bigger and more modern equipment. Sometime in the late 90s I saw the long silage blower still sitting in the back of that neighbors shed.
I still have the barge box, and the 'conversion' parts are still sitting around in 2 sheds, the extended sides, rear flap, pipe, and false front.
Anyhow, memories of a 5 year old.
Paul |
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Columbia Basin, Ephrata, WA | Dave9110 - 2/2/2017 16:24
Dad got a new AC chopper and blower , and made self unloading wagons from flat beds sometime in the 50s. The wagons unloaded by rolling a canvas along the floor powered by an electric motor and reduction gear. He did several silos in the area and had to move the silo pipe on each silo.
But the really important question, to which nobody could ever come to a consensus to answer, is which way is correct to install the bolts in the blower pipe? Nuts up or nuts down?
Edited by Big Ben 2/2/2017 20:56
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Kingdom of Callaway - Fulton, Mo 65251 | My great-great-great uncle had a steam engine and did custom threshing and silo filling. On one of our farms, there was the remains of the bolt together silo they filled with a stationary chopper/blower and next to it was a big cistern. My great uncle told me that he would dip buckets of water out of the cistern and pour it in a funnel type opening on the side of the blower to add moisture.
They also had a horse powered sweep like mentioned above they used for powering a elevator, a husker shredder, and a stationary hay baler. I've got some pictures somewhere I'll try to find and post.
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| oldbones - 2/2/2017 18:39
Red Paint - 2/2/2017 16:59
Now, the job I have always wondered is filling the corn crib before elevators and engines came around. Some of them are awfully tall for a scoop shovel.
Before engines, they used a "horse power" to run the ear corn elevator. The horses were harnessed to the "horse power" vertical shaft. That went down to a 90 degree open gear. Then a jackshaft come off that and went to the elevator to turn the bottom drive sprocket (like a pto ).
I helped one time and an "old time" demonstration. The ear corn was shoveled out of the flare box into the elevator drag, and the horses just walked around the "horse power", stepping over the jackshaft when they came to it.
Not sure, but I think the "horse power" came about at the same time as the elevator, but I could be wrong on that part.
I tried finding a picture of a "horse power", but can't find one, so there must be another name for it. I only knew it as a "horse power".
edit: I found this similar operation. The one shown is a permanent operation, with the jackshaft underground, but the ones I've seen are portable, and only take a half hour or less to set up, and only needed 2 horses.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbTNtCWXccQ
.
I've been told the jackshaft was referred to as the tumbling rod. I thought I was told that a person would have to drive the horses around the circle and would sometimes trip over the jackshaft, and that's how it earned the nickname the tumbling rod, or maybe it was the horses that tripped. |
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North Central Kansas | Dad was still binding the feed cane we sometimes called sorghum back in the early fifties. Used a wheat binder with PTO but still required someone riding on the binder to raise and lower the header and reel.
Then the bundles either went to the silo for blower chopping or were put into shocks for winter feeding. I don't remember removing the twine for either method.
The blower pipe for the 40' high silo was assembled from sections while laying on the ground. A rope was then used with a windlass up on the side of the silo to pull the pipe by hand up into position with the gooseneck attached.
The pipe would occasionally plug when running the chopper/blower (Hesston brand) so someone had to straddle the pipe and lift it up off of the blower outlet. The blower outlet was simply sheet metal rolled to the round shape with the upper end left sharp that fit up into the pipe. I remember a story heard as a youngster about a gentleman who go a little too friendly with the blower pipe when setting it back on the sharp outlet while straddling it. Seems that the gentleman lost part of his appendage. Hurts to even think about it. |
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SCWI | Nuts down |
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Floyd County, Iowa | Yup, you're right, it's a tumbling rod.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Tumbling+rod
I knew that "jackshaft" wasn't quite the right term, but couldn't pull the right word out of the memory bank.
When I helped that time, it was a sweat session, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not so sure I'd feel that way if I had to do it as a way of life. Never see pictures of big bellies in the old pictures (for a reason, I think).
Thanks for jogging my memory. |
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North Bend, NE | I've heard the same from a few old timers too. The hogs would clean it up. |
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East Central Ia, S. Waterloo | If you think hard enough seems like everybody has had a neighbor like that. Most times seems you just have to shrug it off and figure lesson learned. Of course then there's the neighbor that will do anything for everybody. |
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NEMO | The story they used to tell around here was they would put fat hogs in the silo to pack it and when it was full the hogs went over the edge and it was time to butcher. They would also add a ring of picket fence to the top to gain extra capacity. |
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North Central Kansas | I had forgotten about the picket fence or snow fence as it was sometimes called. The fence did give the extra capacity as it could be overfilled and then settle down to below the fence.
Anyone heard of hogs getting drunk off of the fermented juice oozing out the bottom of the silo? |
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Hagen Brothers farms,Goodrich ND | Dan Loehr - 2/2/2017 16:22
Were laying tile --a bunch of brick was on top the ground-- brought up the discussion at lunch how were the first silo's filled?, and then we discussed how was corn (I guess)---or possibly some other crop--- chopped to get it ready to ensile. FWIW the brick in question should have been buried by my brother in 1978 but it is very hard to estimate how deep a hole needed to bury a bunch of brick and other rock when digging the hole with a CAT D4D---- WTF I'm sure he did better than I would do. That silo had to been built in the 1800's
FWIW some of the silo's we have buried were made of wood some brick and some white staves --Heck we weren't prejudice we burned and buried all of our ancestors stuff.
We were all guessing steam engine ---but how did they get the product chopped into little pieces and up into an upright silo -- at least 30' tall.
Not earth shattering to make any one $ --but I said NAT will come through
Love NAT Dan
 (filling silo.jpg)
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filling silo.jpg (189KB - 451 downloads)
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Holland, Indiana (SW IN) | Cool pics and replies
Thanks NAT ---Dan |
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Southeast Colorado | I grew up shocking a LOT of geed. My great Uncle was still binding cane feed with a wheat binder until the year he passed away. I ran tractor for him in 1994 while he rode the binder. I did get him to let me run the binder for an hour or so because I knew that it was a dieing art and I'd always have a story to tell. |
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How were the silo's filled days gone by?
