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Fred Hatch was fresh out of the Illinois Industrial University at Champaign (now the University of Illinois) when he returned to his father's dairy farm in Spring Grove in 1873. A member of the university's second graduating class, he was eager to demonstrate what he'd learned at college.
At that time there were few textbooks on agriculture. Professor Willard Flagg Bliss (the university's only faculty member in the agriculture department), improvised by translating foreign papers and bulletins on relevant topics. From these, Fred learned of the formation of silage from sugar beet pulp and maize.
In the fall of 1873, Fred's father, Lewis Hatch, agreed -after much persuasion - to build a structure inside the barn to hold silage. He and Fred dug a 10x16 rectangular hole, eight feet deep, and lined it with rocks and mortar, just as basement walls were constructed in that day. They extended the walls above ground 16 feet, constructing them of two thickness of flooring boards with a layer of tar paper sandwiched between them. That fall, they loaded the new silo with green corn fodder. Almost immediately, their cows stayed fatter and gave more milk than they ever had before.
Submitted by Bud Porter, Woodstock, IL
"Silo filling had a special sound. You could hear the peculiar high and low pitches and loud whine of the blower baffles from a mile away..."
Gale VandeBerg, "Beyond the Horizons"