kipps - 6/12/2025 16:16



They were filling with blowers even back in the 1920's. The chopper and blower were combined into a single unit, and belt-driven from a tractor positioned a distance away. The corn stalks were cut by hand in the field, laid onto flatbed wagons, and brought back to the silo. Then those stalks were flipped over onto the conveyor belt leading into the chopper knives, and sent directly into the blower.

It was common too, to have someone inside the silo leveling and distributing the silage as it was coming in. There was a series of conical chutes hanging from the blower gooseneck down to the silage level, and a ten-year-old boy would be walking those chutes around the inside of the silo to fill it evenly. Each chute section would be unhooked and set aside, as the silage level came up.

The person inside the silo during filling was also responsible for sealing the silo doors as the silo filled. The wooden doors didn't seal tightly to each other or to the concrete silo walls, so a roll of tar-paper was unrolled up the inside of the doors as the silo
was filled up.