RADFORD'S PRACTICAL BARN PLANS H OUTBUILDINGS s^ STOCK SHEDS Digitized by tine Internet Archive in 2009 witii funding from NCSU Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/radfordspractica01radf V RADFORD'S Practical Barn Plans Being a Complete Collection of Practical, Economical and Com- mon-Sense Plans of Barns, Out Buildings and Stock Sheds :: :: :: EDITED BY WILLIAM A. RADFORD President of The Radford Architectural Co., Author of "Radford's Encyclopedia on Carpentry, Building and Architecture," "The Steel Square and Its Uses," "Practical Carpentry," "The Radford American Homes," "The Radford Ideal Homes," "Rad- ford's Modern Homes," "Radford's Artistic Bungalows," "Radford's Artistic Homes," "Cement Houses and How to Build Them," "Radford's Combined House and Barn Plan Book," "Radford's Stores and Fiat Buildings," and the best authority in the country on all matters pertaining to the building industry. PUBLISHED BY THE RADFORD ARCHITECTURAL CO. No. 185 E.Jackson Blvd., No. I 78 Fulton St., CHICAGO, ILL. NEW YORK, N. Y. PREFACE The farm building department is given not only in the interest of the farmer, but because every one is more or less dependent upon the soil and is consequently directly or indirectly interested in the prosperity of the farmer. There comes a time when every business man and most other men want to build either a house, or barn, or both. It is the province of this book to offer suggestions. Plans are necessary to avoid mistakes. It is just as easy to secure good plans as to build after the ideas prevailing in the neighborhood, probably advanced by some carpenter who has had little or no experience outside of his own town. Barns as well as houses are built or should be built for a specific purpose and there are fundamental principles which are vital if the best results are to be obtained. It is not always necessary or desirable to build expensively. It often happens that an inexpensive or even a cheap structure will answer the purpose just as well, but this book does not countenance the building of unsightly houses or out buildings. There are essentials to be built into farm buildings that cannot be seen after they are finished, but these essentials must be there or the buildings will not be right. Drainage, foundation, ventilation and economy are four requisites that have received special attention in compiling the material for this work and they are four of the worst neglected principles when ordinary farm buildings are planned. Drainage and foundation are easily treated to fit each case, but ventilation is less tangible, although it is equally important, while the study of economy has no beginning and no legitimate ending, for it embraces not only the construction of the building, but the use of it ever after. Even a small farm building is worth very close attention in the planning, location and building because of its appearance and the labor it entails in its connection with general farm economy. In the arrangement of the book the first point made clear to the reader is the need for the structure. Naturally what the building is wanted for should be first made plain. Then the construction is followed to completion when the building takes its place in the farm economy. It is a book, the author believes, which will make interesting a subject that farmers have always before them, and enable them to find a design for any kind of barn or farm building that may be needed. It is a pleasure to contribute anything to add to the beauties and charm of American firm life, and in that spirit this vol- ume is given to the agricultural world. Coi.yriKlil l'«P' Till; K.MiioKi) ARCiiiTi-xrrRAi, Co. ClIICAC.O Department of Dairy Barns LARGE DAIRY STABLE— Aioo Price of Blue Prints, $15.00. THE careful housing of dairy cows is re- ceiving systematic consideration as never before. Investigations have been conducted by men who are thoroughly conversant with the subject from a prac- tical as well as a scientific standpoint. Government milk inspectors, backed by public opinion, have established a thor- ough system of inspection. City milk sup- ply is now traced to its source, the cows examined thoroughly for condition and health and the stable for cleanliness. If incompetency or indifference has led the dairyman to disobey the state sanitary re- quirements he is not permitted to ship milk until he satisfies the inspector that he has mended his ways. This course was made necessary by the rapidly increasing volume of business which is conducted by such a cosmopolitan class of people; com- prising as it does, all grades of producers from the most progressive farmer down the line of small dairymen to the ignorant huckster. Cleanliness is required by in- spectors, first, last and all the time; thus, making the right start, for cleanliness, leads to many virtues. A man who is par- ticular about all utensils, his wagon, stable, cattle and himslf, will not tolerate a poor stable or an unhealthy cow. He may not understand the science of fer- ments or disease germs, but his milk sup- ply will be good and wholesome, because he robs harmful bacteria of the dirt upon which they thrive. In our northern climate, warmer stables have for years occupied the attention of our best farmers and stockmen. Bank barns were the outgrowth of a desire to provide comfortable stables that were both warmer and better. The conven- ience of having all stock under one roof, tucked carefully away from the cold, with plenty of feed overhead ready at all times to find its way to mangers and food racks by gravity, proved very alluring to ambitious farmers all over the country. But animals housed in these expensive dungeons were not happy and showed their discomfiture in watery eyes, luster- less hair, hot noses and hot, feverish breath, with fretful, quarrelsome actions together with their inability to grow or fatten. Too frequently cattle thus hous- ed were attacked by bovine disease germs, which were materially assisted in their work of destruction by conditions so ex- pensively though unintentionally provid- ed. Stockmen thought the trouble was caused by too great a change in tempera- ture by allowing the cattle to go out for an airing or for water each day; to rem- edy this, water buckets were added to the stable outfit and the stock confined in an abominable atmosphere for weeks at a time. Atmospheric conditions affect animals differently. The heavy breeds of beef cat- tle are usually phlegmatic in disposition, paying little attention to ordinary disturb- n6 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS ances; these suffered less in consequence, though it was noticed that they did not benefit from the quantity and quaUty of feed as they should. Milch cows of a highly nervous organization are more sus- ceptible to incipient diseases caused by ob- jectional surroundings than any other domestic animal. Not until progressive scientific men spent much time and money in investigations and experiments was the trouble traced to its true source. Analyzing stable atmosphere led to the detection of harmful bacteria in incredu- lous numbers. Scientists engaged in the work were slow to give out the result of their first investigations, thinking that the conditions under which they were working might be abnormal. Prospecting further cient to be of use. Sunlight is destructive to all forms of harmful bacteria; therefore a stable should admit the direct rays of the sun to every stall if possible. An eastern model dairy stable combin- ing all good qualities while eliminating ob- jectionable features is shown in the ac- companying plans. The stable may be built at a low cost, is warm in winter, cool in summer, and sanitary and hygienic at all times. Location. The proper location for a dairy stable is the first consideration. Good air. good drainage, plenty of sunlight and an abun- dant water supply are all essential feat- and while endeavoring to learn the cause they found the conditions in these cellar stables particularly favorable to the pro- pagation of stockmen's worst enemy. Harmful bacteria delight in a dusty atmos- phere, especially when it is impregnated with moisture; when a share of the damp- ness comes from the moisture laden breath of animals that are obliged to breathe the same air over and over again, bacteria con- ditions are complete. Bank barns are always damp and always dusty; owing to their construction they never admit sunlight in quantities suffi- ures Fresh air and drainage may be se- cured by selecting an elevation; protection from cold winds by means of a tree belt or a high tight board fence. Sufficient water may be obtained in most any situation by a powerful windmill. There are other con- siderations such as convenience to the pas- ture fields and a short haul from the fields in which soiling crops are grown. Pas- ture, however, receives less consideration than it did a few years ago. North of parallel 42 there is an average of only six weeks of good pasture. Summer droughts sandwiched in between late spring and PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 117 early fall frosts are responsible for this condition, so that a good many farmers in the east depend upon soiling crops a great deal more than they do on pasture. A runway consisting of least a quarter of an acre for each cow is necessary, but the fields may be more profitably employed in raising cultivated crops. The question of drainage is a very important one. If the soil is naturally dry and slopes sufficient to carry off rain water no elaborate sys- tem of tiling will be necessary, but if there is any doubt it is better to be on the safe side. Grading. In laying out a stable a great deal of after work may be saved by a careful sur- vey of the grade. Manure should be re- moved from a dairy stable promptly every day and carted at once to the fields. By the use of a manure carrier and a spreader this way of managing is cheaper as well as better than the old fashioned way of piling in manure to be hauled away at a few stakes of different lengths comprises about all the tools necessary. Excavation. The excavation for the walls may be just deep enough to go below frost. For con- crete or cement walls make the trench just the width necessary to hold the wall ma- terial but after the trench is done make a rounded recess all round the edge near the bottom to hold a course of three inch tile. This answers the double purpose of carrying off surplus water and preventing rats from undermining the wall. Rats will dig down at the side of the wall until they come to an obstruction, they will follow the obstruction along close to the wall but never think of digging outward to get around it. The ends of the tile should ter- minate in the main drain just below the trap. Walls. In some parts of the country stone is plentiful and farmers prefer to lay up a stone wall but generally speaking a con- ^iff/^ or COI/' Bfi/fN some future time. In making the grade the stable floor may be placed high enough to run the manure carrier directly out over the spreader. Calculation must also be made for carrying off the water used in flushing the gutters and in washing the dairy utensils. The intake for ventilation is another consideration before commenc- ing work. In order to lay out the ground right a general working drawing giving the floor plan and profile is necessary. Any one can work to such a plan by having a few simple instruments. An A level and Crete wall is cheaper and better. The ma- terials may be put together on the ground and dumped into the trenches with un- skilled labor. It is only necessary to look carefully to the leveling and finishing of the job. For this purpose a two inch plank staked carefully in position with the edges even with the top of the wall forms a guide both for leveling and for thickness. Open- ings in the plank may be left for doorways and boxes built around the size and shape to properly hold cement sills so that when the wall is finished the door sills will be ii8 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS complete and the whole tiling will be in one piece. The Floor After the walls are finished the grading for the floor conies next in order. The pro- file shows the relative position of the in- take for fresh air, the floor of the feeding alley, position of the cement mangers, in- clines of the floor in which the cattle stand, the gutter and the walk behind the cows. Besides the cross section the mangers and gutters incline with the length of the sta- ble. In order to locate all these points a good many grade stakes are necessary. They are set carefully to measurement and driven down until the tops come right for the grade. It is easier to do this work be- fore the building is erected. One point to be rembered is that the wall should not extend much above the floor for the reason that dampness will collect on the inner side or warmer side of the wall especially in winter. Also the iron pipes designed to partition the stalls and support the ceil- ing should be imbedded in cement when it is fresh. Superstructure It is cheaper to build barns and stables low because lighter material may be used in their construction. A dairy stable should have a low ceiling to facilitate ventilation. Seven feet is high enough for a ceiling but eight feet looks better if the stable is long and where there are a good many cows to- /*' ■'li «f v»- t-l- J.t-.- fie- ■« ■* 'O ■a ^^ ??!?K^?'***W^^ ^' ci^yyrnoA/ or ^r/fi.U'i gether there is no objection to an eight foot ceiling. A good deal depends on the number of cows kept. A stable may be built on this ])lan to hold twenty-four cows or it may be made long enough to hold one hundred. The principle of ventilation de- pends on the circulation of air. Warm air is lighter than cold air and it naturally goes up. In order to ventilate a stable we must get animals enough in it to warm the air. There is little or no circulation in a cold room. For the ventilation to work right the temperature in a stable should not go below 55 degrees. This plan takes the air in at the center in front of the cows where the cows may breathe the clean fresh air from outside before it becomes contaminated. The hot breath of the cows goes to the ceiling, spreads in all directions to the sides of the room while it loads up with impurities and finally settles to the floor at the sides of the stable where it is drawn ofif by the ventilators and sent out through the roof. In order for the ventilat- ing system to work right the stable must be practically air tight around the sides and ceiling and the doors must fit well. There is a light sill six by six bedded in fresh cement mortar on top of the walls, two by six studding seven feet long toe- nailed into the sill and a two by six plate PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 119 spiked on top of the studding. Building paper is nailed to the studding both inside and out. The inside is lined with matched ceiling without bead. This is to eliminate all cracks and joints as far as possible. There are no cracks and places for dust to lodge as all stable dust is bacteria laden. In like manner building paper is tacked to the ceiling joists and under the paper a light matched ceiling is nailed so that the whole room is smooth around and there are no projections or shelves of any kind to hold dust. The stall partitions are as light as possible for the same reason. Door and window frames are made flush on the inside and just a light four inch casing turned to cover the joint. It is better to use a great deal of care in laying thf, build- ventilation to keep the loft cool. The out- side of the stable is boarded up with pat- ent siding and a light box cornice makes the finish at the eaves. The ventilating system is shown in the cuts. It pays to to put on an eave trough whether the water is wanted for use or not because the drip from the eaves will cause dampness and this should be avoided. Because the build- ing is low a light roof is sufficient. Two by four rafters are heavy enough if well supported by cross collar beams. The Silos In this plan the silos are placed at the end of the stable. If the stable is long how- ever it is better to put the silos in the mid- dle. It will save steps at feeding time. It ing paper around all such places to prevent air openings. It is not intended to use the loft over this stable for storage or any pur- pose but it is better to build the loft so that it may be swept occassionally to clear out the dust. A window is placed in each gable for the purpose of causing sufficient is better to have two small silos than one large one. From sixteen to twenty feet in diameter is big enough for any silo. The surface may then be fed off every day and the silage kept fresh at all times. The milk room is at the side of the silo. The floor and sides are built entirely of cement and I20 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS the room has a white matched ceiling. It is provided with an open drain that con- nects with the main drain outside of the building. The milk room contains a sep- arator, scales, Babcock tester and a shelf to hold the smaller utensils and a porcelain lined sink for washing dishes. Outside of the milk room is a rack to hold the cans where they are turned upside down every morning in the sun. Beyond the silos and milk room is the barn where the roughage is kept and the track from the stable runs across so the feed may be brought by an overhead track carrier. The silos are at the north end of the building. The manure is taken out through the south doors. The cows are also let in and out of the south doors. This style of stable should be built north and south so that the sun will shine in at all of the windows. Silo Construction The cheapest form of a silo is the round stave construction. It is about as good as any, too, when it is thoroughly well built from well seasoned lumber; in fact, it has been thoroughly demonstrated that the stave silo is a success. In New Jersey and Eastern Pennsylvania the stave silo is almost universally used. They do not last as long as some others. Probably the average life of a stave silo is somewhere between five and ten years. But a farmer can tear down and rebuild because the ma- terial is comparatively cheap and there is not much of it. In some parts of the coun- try there is a prejudice against this form of silo. Some claim that the silage is not so good, but it would be difificult to sub- stantiate this claim. Of course, to keep silage properly in any kind of a silo it must be air tight. If a stave silo leaks at the joints the silage will suflfcr, but the same may be said of any make of silo. Some of this prejudice comes from the dairy farmers who formerly had exper- ience with stave silos which were construc- ted by putting rough planks together with- out beveling the edges, but the way staves are made now with bevels carefully cut to fit the circle and provided with heavy iron hoops, and plenty of them, there is prob- ably no better construction. Some stave silos have round tongues and grooves. This is better than a plain straight bevel, but it is not absolutely necessary. The ends of the staves where they butt to- gether are fitted with an iron tongue let into a saw cut in each end of the abutting staves. A convenient height for a silo of this kind is thirty-two feet made from sixteen foot stuff, but some staves must be eight feet long in order to break joints. Most stave silos erected are bought from some manufacturer who has a patent on some little contrivance in connection with their manufacture, but any farmer can order the material and build his own silo if he wishes to do so. The mills will cut and bevel the staves and tongue and groove them to fit any circle desired, but it is necessary to understand all the little de- tails and see that they are properly worked ■)ut. A good many of the patent silos have an iron framework to hold the doors. This is an advantage inasmuch as wood gets damp and swells, but any carpenter can bolt two timbers together in such a way as to make a good framework to hold the doors, and the saving in expense is con- siderable. The doors may be made loose and calked around the edges with tow or the soft parts of corn stalks makes very good calking material. In fact, there are a great many different ways to manage if a person is determined to have a silo, but it is well to remember that the doors are a particular part. The framework must be solid and there must be ample space between the doors for the hoops. Figures on all Cuts Correspond. A — Drain tile. B — Gas pipe 1% inch for stall parti- tions, chain ring and ceiling supports. C — Ventilation intake. D — Stable floor where cows stand hav- ing an incline of two inches. E — Cement manger having an incline of % inch per ten feet. F — Cow chains. G — Manure carriers. PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 121 H — Car tracks, should be near the ceil- ing to give plenty of head room. I — Hood ventilator, tail on opening side with counter weight to prevent friction, and allow it to turn easily. This hood does not touch the pipe but turns on a spindle which passes through the upper cross piece in the pipe and is socketed in the lower cross piece about three feet down in the pipe. J — Ventilator shaft drawing foul air from near the floor. K — Register for use in hot weather to draw off the hot air when the stable doors are open. L — Register that may be partially closed to regulate intake of fresh air. M — Register to regulate the amount of draft allowed to foul air. This is one of the most important features of the sys- tem as the warmth of the stable as well as the quality of the air is controlled by it. O — Galvanized iron gutter. DAIRY BANK BARN— A125 An old fashioned dairy barn is shown in the ventilation. To have good air in a cow plan (A125). There are a good many such barns still in use in Wisconsin. Those stable it is absolutely necessary to have a system of ventilation. You can stable four K i « \ \ *t i -—.it.. •r-^ // \ // / '' ^ ■^ / y V \ // % •■// ■/ 'i ^i / ^ ^ // \ / ' ft \: 1 m /'^^ T-A \ )/ ■< • /<=>/ /^Tiq x\ \ A ^ .... •e« i ^ \^ /x ^ ajx'^A^ i-Jti. \ ■* ■< 1 •< ! ^ 5 j-^^^yrif = ^ ^: HUM v^ tlK 'V i ^ '/ ? //' sr> VKiTA'/Oi S ^ /t^ ^/rt; i . -rf'*'/^?. rn^c-f. eon - I // Si ,'' 1 s r/^-^c tto*ts i f 1 inr UTT^ _ 1 using them say they are satisfactory under or five cows together and depend on certain conditions. chance openings to provide them with One good feature about this stable is oxygen, but you cannot depend on Prov- 129 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS idence to keep your cattle alive in a large stable unless you assist a little bit. A good many dairymen prefer to have the cows face outward. This is a matter way. One advantage of having the two manure gutters in the middle is that a cart may be driven through to remove the ma- nure. If there is any other good reason of individual preference. Probably nine stables out of ten are made to face the cows in, but this is no dead open and shut reason why this stable should be built that £:nd .s£ct/oa/ I am not familiar with it. In these Wis- consin stables the old fashioned stanchions are used. There is a large amount of storage over- PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 123 head in a barn like this, and it is a conven- walls of this building, concrete of course ient barn to do the work in except in the will answer the purpose just as well, in matter of feeding the cows. It takes more fact concrete is better than stone when it steps to get around to feed the cows when they face out. This barn is backed up to a bank, preferably on the north side, where s£:cr/oA/ or ^rA^A/c/z/oA/^ the incline may be had easily to drive in on the main floor. The horse fork is worked from the center. Although stone is stipulated for the is properly made. Concrete is damp- proof when the materials are so mixed that the sand fills the spaces between the brok- en rock and the cement fills the spaces be- tween the grains of sand. Then if the mixing is thoroughly done and just enough water used to thoroughly amalga- mate the different ingredients into one solid mass it will make a wall that damp- ness cannot penetrate. This way of mixing concrete is not only the best, but it is usually cheaper because it requires less cement. By actual exper- iments it has been proven that when the proportions are exactly right as stated the resulting concrete is not only stronger but cheaper than when a richer mixture is put together. Of course the wall under a barn like this may be poorly constructed and still support the barn for a lifetime. At the same time if you can make a wall that is harder and better than stone for the same amount of money it is much bet- ter to do so. In making the floor of course you work on a dififerent plan because a stable floor receives a great deal of wear. 124 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS COMBINED BARN AND COVERED BARNYARD— A102 Cost of Blue Prints, $15.00 A great many dairmen like to have a sloping to the south. There is a good root covered barnyard for the cows to exercise cellar in the bank next to the building on in and some go so far as to keep the cows the north side and the large roof surface is in this covered barnyard both night and utilized to furnish water for the cistern. ^/o£r cLcyyfno/v or ^w/f/v /ia/o y^/fo day, just stabling them long enough to A cistern filter is placed inside the building milk and feed grain and silage. In some so it won't freeze. To have nice cistern r^OM/ eLcy^r/OAf or s^/t/^ /ta/o y^/to part of the countrv the covered barnyard water it is best to run it through a filter, is growing in favor. The feed racks in the covered barnyard The plan, (A102), is designed for a bank are made movable to facilitate driving PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 125 through at cleaning time. Mild days in winter the manure spreader is brought in at one door, loaded and taken out at the other. The racks are placed in the cen- ter under the feed chutes so the roughage from the storage above may be dropped in- to them with as little work as possible. A bull pen is shown in the northeast corner with the yard outside for exercise. It depends somewhat on the slope of the bank whether this is the best place to put the bull pen or not. You want the bull yard out of the way, still it should be in full view of the barn yard, both for con- With a cistern and a windmill the water tank is kept supplied all the time so the cows ma}^ run to it when they want to. The stable floor should be about two feet high- er than the floor in the covered barnyard. This gives an eight foot ceiling for the sta- ble and a ten foot ceiling in the yard. venience in feeding ana ^.tending to the bull, and to keep the animal from becom- ing lonesome and cross. Possibly the position of the bull yard and the cistern might be reversed to the advantage of both as it would give more bank to hold the cistern and level ground for the bull. 126 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS ROUND DAIRY BARN A-205 Cost of Blue Prints, $20.00 A round barn should have a silo in the center and the silo should be a part of the barn. Round barns are not very fashion- able considering the number that one may see in a day's travel, but there are many features to recommend them. Generally speaking the greatest possi- ble cubic space according to the amount of material may be enclosed in a round barn and the silo being in the center makes it easy to feed the stock because proof that the cement silo is the best un- der all circumstances. ^\'hether a cement or wooden silo is built the frame work of the barn is of light construction, and is framed into the silo. The whole structure is so braced from every direction that there is no necessity of having a heavy frame- work. In the first place a circular cement wall is built for the silo and another cir- cular wall extending down below frost is ^jL .^'i/^T/<^^ all the stalls may be placed within easy reach. A cement silo is more desirable because it is durable but the first cost is greater. W'ooden silos rot out in a few years' time and certain parts of them must be replac- ed, but this need not be taken as positive built around outside of the barn. This wall reaches up about a foot above grade with the exception only of the doors to drive through and at these places the wall is widened to make a slanting bridge ap- proach from the outside up to the level of the stable floor. These approaches are PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 127 reinforced with strong cement mortar to make them durable. Circular sills may be built up on this wall or the studding may be set up on the cement and tied together both inside and holding a cask together, the only excep- tion being at the doorways, and provision may be made here to let the door posts into a recess in the wall. Two by four or two by six studding may be used ac- jE: -^^wC,^ y'^^Ay out with an extra piece bent around and nailed firmly to each end. In fact the cir- cular outside boarding makes the sides very solid without anything extra at the bottom because the boarding running round and round is like so many hoops cording to the distance apart and the size of the barn. The joists all point to the center, the outer ends being spiked to the studding and the)^ are again spiked together at the laps. The joists are suspended at inter- 128 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS vals by girths and these girths are sup- ported by the stall or pen partitions. It should be remembered here that the prin- cipal weight comes on these supports and they should be heavy enough to carry the load. In a large barn like the plan shown, two by six for outside studding will be found sufficient, especially as there are so many of them. The plan shows a barn eighty feet in diameter, but these barns may be built in any size from fifty to a hundred feet with a silo in the center about twenty feet across. The size of the silo must be determined by the number of head of stock. Silage must be fed down about two inches every day to keep it fresh and in good condition. The roof is just as strong as the other construction with rafters all radiating from the silo to the eaves. The roof boards are put on in circles so that the roof is actually hooped, as well as the sides of the building. A cyclone might lift such a roof and roll it around the country like a cart wheel, but it would hardly break to pieces. Hay fork tracks in a round barn are suspended in circular form from a clear space left for the purpose, a little nearer the silo than the middle, because the mow grows deeper as you work to- wards the center. In a round dairy barn the stalls are all built so the cows face together, which is convenient for removing the manure. A circular track for the manure carrier should extend all the way around the barn behind the cows to facilitate easy cleaning. STORAGE BARN WITH DAIRY STABLE WING— A136 Cost of Blue Prints, $15,00 A great many dairymen object to hav- profitably unless the rough feed and straw ing storage of any kind over a cow stable, may be reached easily. Labor is so expen- CO/fM C/fIB There is more or less dust from the mows, sive that even the steps necessary while and the dust is objectionable for several feeding must be counted and reckoned in reasons. But it is impossible to keep cows the cost. If there is no storage over the PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 129 cows there must be storage near by. The silo in this plan is placed at the side about midway along the length of the stable for age barn easily accessible to the stable. It would not be necessary to have a door at the outer end of the feed alley, but it is ^loc ELCy,vr/o/i/ easy feeding. This position also makes it easy to get the green cut stalks into the silo at filling time. Not much corn is fed to dairy cows, but very handy in the summer time if green feed is fed to the cows in the stable. In the storage barn the hay mow reaches from the ground to the roof. For TIT T eoi 4r0iL\ i ^ L '~V2'o<)/f fLfiN or c/ir'rt.c ajt/f/^ the crib is not far away from either cows comfort in cold weather it is better to or horses. A dairy room ten b}^ seventeen board up the side of this mow to the floor ieet is built in the corner next to the stor- over the driveway. It is necessary to have 130 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS an opening through the floor over the driveway to use a hay fork. The opening may be boarded around and used as a chute to pitch hay down through for feed- ing, but such details must depend to a great extent upon the kind of farming car- ried on and the other buildings on the farm. MODEL COW BARN— A 1 58 Cost of Blue Prints, $15.00 The size of this cow stable is thirty- eight feet six by one hundred and forty- two feet and it has a capacity for housing fifty-two cows. It was designed very care- fully to provide every comfort for a herd of thoroughbred Guernseys. The entire floor is made of concrete, in- cluding manger and manure drains which The mangers are also connected with the sewer so that the cows may be watered in the manger and the surplus water im- mediately drawn off. A space of two feet high between the studding of the outer walls is filled in with concrete and troweled smooth with a curve at the floor line to leave no chance for the <.. — t: *■ 0>5S •/O/vy -- I I f^ 1^-^. "-ft--' -'-%-•., ^1 t carry the liquid manure back to the ma- nure pits. They are also connected with the sewer drain so that the wash water from flooding the floors can be carried away to a safe distance. collection of filth to favor the breeding of disease germs. Gas piping is used for stalls set firmly in the cement. Each stall is finished with individual wrought iron hay racks made to swing up. PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 131 lb _ s^"^ H^ $ r 1 132 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS There is a cement top to the concrete floor which is finished rough enough to prevent sHpping and to hold the bedding. Cows in this stable face towards the cen- ter and the center aisle is wide enough to ing loaded into cars and wheeled through the feed alley to the mangers. Light and ventilation were main fea- tures in the construction of this stable. Careful calculations were made to secure drive through with a wagon and hay-rack for hauling loose hay and fodder. The silos are located at the end, the silage be- plenty of fresh air for each animal as the sanitary conditions with such a valuable herd of animals is an important feature. This cow barn is eighty-one feet long and will accommo- date twenty-four cows. There is a feed room, wash room for washing utensils and an office. Along one side a silo is placed near the mixing room and conven- ient to the feed alleys which in this stable are at the sides. The manure gutters and floor for clean- ing is in the center so that in this stable the cows face outward. This arrangement makes it easier to remove the manure and the plan is liked by some dairymen. The balloon roof construction makes it possible to store a great deal of feed over head. It leaves a clear space for the horse fork which works freely from one end of the building to the other. Roofs like this are comparatively new. The first ones built were not strong enough to stand BARN FOR DAIRY COWS— A162 Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 forty feet wide by heavy winds and some of them blew down, but there has been no such trouble re- cently. If properly braced each side forms a truss and the two trusses meet together at the peak. There are hay chutes at the sides for putting down hay and bedding and there is a stairway at the side of the office for convenience in getting up and down. To help out in feeding time there should be a silage carrier to run from the silo down the different alleys to distribute the feed. If a farmer wants to know the num- ber of miles traveled about the stable it is only necessary to figure the number of trips and steps taken each feeding time, then multiply this by the number of feeds during the winter. If every dairyman would do this the location of some silos would be changed. The amount of travel PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 133 h "- 134 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS will surprise those who have never thought about it. This is one reason for placing the silo at the side. The manure alley in the center is wide enough to drive the manure spreader right through, loading it in the meantime so it is not necessary to have a pile of manure outside of the stable. Manure is worth a great deal more when it is drawn immediately from the stable to the field. This barn looks well and it is a good prac- tical barn. STABLE FOR TWENTY-FOUR COWS— Aioi Cost of Blue Prints, $15.00 This plan provides stabling complete for twenty-four cows with calf pen, bull pen, two box stalls, a feed room and a wash room. This plan offers the advant- age of a wide driveway through the cen- ter feed alley which is a great advantage in the summer time when green feed is inches apart from centers. This gives about three inches in the clear between the pickets. The object in this is to let the bull see everything that is going on in the stable. It makes a bull much more con- tented and he is less liable to become cross. A bull needs company just as much as any J/Z7£" £L£:y}9r/0A^ or D/7//?y B/7/fN used for soiling i)urposcs and hauled di- rectly on hay-racks from the fields to the cows in the stable. There is an advantage in having a bull pen arranged in this manner. The door at the corner opens into the yard for exer- cise and the pen inside is made of one and one-half inch gas pipe pickets placed five other animal. A great deal of trouble has come from shutting bulls u]) in tight pens where they become lonesome and morose. Box stalls are boarded to the ceiling and made as warm and as comfortable as pos- sible. The width of this stable is thirty-six feet, rather wider than usual but it allows PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 135 ample room for the driveway in the center and a g"God passageway behind the cows besides giving room enough to place the feed room, box stalls and other pens on opposite sides of the driveway in one end steps at feeding time. One great advant- age with this stable is the number of win- dows. The windows extend from the ceil- ing to within three feet of the floor which is a great advantage in admitting sun- r/!OA/r £i.cr/rT/o» or ofl/z^r b^/ta of the stable. The length of the building is eighty-four feet, but of course it could be extended if more room is desired with- shine. The manger in this stable is placed two inches above the floor. It is two feet wide and six inches deep and the bottom 4-..n I I I I I i>f/y£irvy -Hfl I I i. I I M I I rioo/f fjjTM or Afoocfiu oj!my Bnajt T^^3 out altering the width or the general plan. Placing the silo near the middle of the building saves carrying the silage more than fifty feet which is a great saving of is slightly rounded. Three feet six inches are allowed for the width of the stalls with a standing floor four feet ten inches. Of course both the length and width of the 1^6 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS stalls should be made to fit the cows. For an extra large Holstein a four foot stall with a five foot length may not be too much but four feet ten inches by three and one-half feet is big enough for most cows and it is too much for some. A perfect cow stall has never been invented. If some dairymen wishes to be honored by poster- ity he should get busy and invent a cow stall that will be thoroughly satisfactory under all circumstances. The calf pen in this plan meets the views of the best dairymen who have examined it. It is twenty-one by eleven feet with a manger in front for grain feeding and a hay-rack along the back wall. Individual stanchions are provided for use when feed- ing the calves grain or milk. It would be difficult to devise a better arrangement for calves and we all know that the calves of this year are the cows of two years hence and the value of the cow depends on the quality of the calf and the feed and care given it. A silo for twenty-eight cows should hold about one hundred and thirty tons. This amount will rather more than feed the cows during the winter but it is a good plan to have a little silage left over to help out the green feed in summer time. A silo sixteen feet in diameter and thirty-two feet high is very satisfactory. The milk room is not exactly separate but it is built on the front and there are two spring doors to shut out the odors of the stable. This building provides for stor- age over the stable with a feed chute in one corner of the feed room. There is a large door between this feed room and the alley for the purpose of preventing dust from flying out into the stable. This feed chute is large enough so that hay, straw or any roughage may be dropped into it from above in sufficient quantity at one time. The door may then be opened and the stuff forked out. There is also a small door opening from the chute into the feed room. This is for the purpose of mixing together feed with chopped stuff in case the owner puts a cutting box overhead. Because of the storage room above, the upper floor is made double thickness with two thicknesses of paper between, match- ed flooring is used and the first course nail- ed to the joists in the usual way, only that the dressed side is placed down. The two thicknesses of paper are then put on and the other floor laid over it and nailed over the joists, the workmen being guided by chalk lines on the paper. COW BARN FOR FORTY COWS— Ai 59 Cost of Blue Prints, $15.00 A cow barn for the accommodation of forty cows having a feed alley of sufficient width to accommodate a wagon with a load of soiling feeds is shown in this plan. This is the quickest and cheapest way of distributing feeds to the mangers along both sides of the feed alley. The mangers as well as the whole floor surface are built of concrete with the man- gers elevated only three inches above the floor level. As cows naturally feed from the ground it is only right that the man- gers should be very low down. The side of the manger nearest the cow is made al- most perpendicular to prevent feed from working over amongst the bedding. But the feed alley floor is elevated and that side of the manger is rounded up to it which makes it easy to keep the feed in the mangers and easy to kick it back when the cows shove it out, as they do while feeding. A water faucet is placed at each end of the manger for the purpose of watering the cows. For disposing of the water left in the manger a drain in the center with an overflow is provided. The middle posts extend from the back of the mangers and run to the roof and these are spaced to al- low three stanchions between the posts. A gutter sixteen inches wide and from five to eight inches deep is run diagonally behind the cows, starting at five feet four from the mangers at one end and finishing PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 137 138 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS up at the other end five feet ten, thus mak- ing different length stalls to accommodate longer or shorter cows. The floor of the stalls is given a slight slope from the manger back to the gutter and the surface of the floor is left rough to prevent the cows from slipping and to hold the bedding in place. There is suf- ficient room back of the alley to run a truck or wheelbarrow to facilitate clean- ing out the manure. The liquids of course run to the lowest point in the center of the gutters where they are connected with a bell trap drain, whence they are carried to a catch-basin directly opposite the drain outside of the building. From this catch- basin the liquids are pumped into the dis- tributing manure cart. All side walls are filled in solid between the timbers with cement concrete to a height of two feet above the floor and then finished with smooth cement plaster which makes a perfectly sanitary finish and per- mits the entire barn floor to be washed with a hose and flooded with water with- out injuring any woodwork. Warmth and ventilation are secured by fitting the size of stable to the number of animals and there are windows enough to admit abundant sunshine which is nature's best disinfectant. Ventilators and fresh air shafts in the walls supply a continuous stream of fresh air which can be controlled by slides. The foul air enters the shafts near the floor and rises in the walls to the triangular vent duct under the ridge of the roof and from this duct the air is ex- hausted through the slat ventilator tow- ers. About 1, 800 cubic feet of air space is provided for each animal. BARN AT MT. CARMEL, ILL.— A195 The barn shown is on a one hundred and is simple in outline, but commodious and twenty acre farm near Mt. Carmel, 111. It very serviceable. PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 139 The foundation is of concrete which ex- way forming a cellar 7x12x20 ft. in which tends 7 ft. deep under east end of drive- are stored fruits, vegetables and perishable foods and feeds for both family and live stock. With rope-and-puUey device a bar- rel of apples or a bag of potatoes may be lowered in or drawn up from this cellar. Elevation and plans give general features of the structure, showing that the barn is intended to stable thirty-eight cows and there is provision for a small corn-crib, feed room and milk room. The idea is that later when the business grows to demand it these rooms will be removed to an out- side building, or separate buildings, and the whole floor space of this barn given up to the stable proper. TWENTY-FOUR COW STABLE— A210 Cost of Blue Prints, $15.00 It will be noticed that about one-third of the ground space of this dairy stable build- ing is taken up with creamery, delivery room, feed room and work shop. The reason for this is that there must be no tinkering work done in the creamery or delivery room. These two compartments must be kept as pure and clean as possible, or the brand of milk required by the boards of health cannot be manufactured. Unless there is a shop for tinkering fitted with a desk and a cupboard to hang extra cloth- I40 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS ing these things will accumulate in the creamery and delivery room. Then when the inspector comes around, the business being taken to use only the best materials and to put them together quickly so the of that farmer is classed as second or third job will harden at one time and set to- rate according to conditions as he finds gether in one great stone. Above the con- them. Crete wall the structure is of wood, but the '" II """ ■ ' I I II' . ■■ " ' '' '"j ™ « The wall and floor of this dairv barn is lower story is plastered outside with ce- built all in one piece of cement, great care ment. All windows are carefully fitted to PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 141 keep out the cold in winter and they are supposed to be kept clean at all times to let in plenty of light. There is a difference of opinion among dairy farmers in regard to the center drive- way between the mangers, some claiming that this space is greater than necessary and that it adds unnecessarily to the width and consequently to the cost of the build- ing, but those dairymen who feed their cows in the stable in the summer time as ; r-^AP Mix 2>C)ofii will accommodate a large feed box on wheels which may be pushed back and forth to the silo and feed mixing room. Especial pains is taken with the parti- tion between the cow stable proper and the creamery room. It is made solid and the door is carefully fitted and supplied with a spring to keep it shut in order to protect the milk from stable odors. Another im- portant feature is to front the stable to- wards the prevailing winds so the draft ;^^J-SA.<:;£1 cr^/TTZlfZ. ^ 1 II r 1 I I I I y<^^/^c-z:.*z^ 2?/r/i^£\^A'y /VW/V' ^'ff-t -Ttrfr i ': I ii I jV(t ;1 ru.j\rv a^ .,^t(4y j-^oof^ ffl CA^T JVIU- ~^ C4£^ .TTU u. ^^AW-siyuu. £i S coMro^r ^/r / r.^a._. ^m -/- i 77ircz> /*o, i*f z\ l-^ CO^^OJT fVT y CX>* ' STA^ J ^^^ J' ■^Nt- f' \ < "vr"i~:: CALT J7AI.U :N ^mi 1^^ i-'* Tw^/f /i^y ^a^/^y PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 153 into the separator and after the milk has been separated from the cream it is again mixed together and then flows through the cooler and into the bottling machine, which is located in a pit in the center of the milk room. The filled and sealed bottles are then placed into wooden delivery boxes for immediate delivery or else stored in the refrigerator ready for use. In order to obtain a purely sanitary milk much depends on the care and clean- liness of the various receptacles, therefore too much emphasis cannot be placed on the washing and sterilizing. All the bot- tles are thoroughly washed by machines, which can do the work very thoroughly and rapidly by revolving brushes, etc., and after a thorough washing they are set into the sterilizing oven, which is equipped with steam coils and steam jets. The butter room is located to the left of the milk room and is well equipped with the most up-to-date churns and also con- tains the testing machine and other appa- ratus. The refrigerator is divided into compartments, and is of the most ap- proved construction. The construction of this building is of the usual balloon type, having a stone foundation under walls of 2 by 4-inch studding, which are sheathed and sided on the outside. Between these is placed a double thickness of heavy building paper. HOME DAIRY— A206 The very best butter is made on farms where the women thoroughly understand the business and have the proper facilities. When the milk from good healthy cows is run through a cream separator as soon as possible after milking and the cream cooled to the right temperature and kept in clean, pure air and churned when it is just old enough and not too old, you get the very nicest butter that skill and' energy can make. Such butter, if shipped regu- larly to consumers in large cities, will bring a bigger price than the best cream- ery butter made. It is no more work to make butter right than to make it wrong;' in fact there is less work because you have| a proper system and that always helps. The farm dairy may be very simple but is should be by itself. You cannot make gilt-edged butter in the kitchen. There are too many odors from cooking and sometimes from tobacco smoke. Cream is very touchy when it comes to odors. You can insult cream with a bad smell quicker than any other food product and when it is once contaminated no cleansing process can possibly eliminate the trouble. The dairy may open ofif from the kitchen but you must keep the door closed. You will need some means of heating this room in winter time, but during the spring, fall and summer it will be warm enough with- out, and if it is on the north side of the building it will be cool enough most of the time without using ice, but ice is cheap enough to have and use when you need it. This dairy is intended for from ten to thirty cows. If you have more cows you may need more room, but that will depend SL to some exten on how often you ship the butter. The intention is to pack the butter in one pound prints or five pound crocks and to ship in neat little crates holding two or three crocks each or in boxes hold- ing ten or twenty prints. If you have the proper storage and the butter is made to keep you can hold it in your store room until you get ready to ship it. Department of General Farm Barns A AN OHIO BARN— A146 Cost of Blue Prints, $10,00 STYLE of barn that is very much used threshing machine is set first on one side in Ohio is shown in plan (A146). A and then on the other for convenience in £:/vo eicK^rjo/if or e/r/vk s^f/f^ peculiarity of this style of barn is what is getting the grain to the macliine. The commonly termed a double threshing bridge from the bank to the ground floor floor. In some of the larger ones the must be stronger than common barn IS4 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 155 bridges because it spans the space between the barn and bank and it leaves a runway for cattle along the bank side of the build- ing. In this plan the cows have no stalls but are stabled in an enclosed shed with a feeding rack the whole length of the side so arranged that it may be filled from the mow above. Several removable racks for feeding grain may be placed anywhere in this shed and a water trough with an ever- lasting supply of good pure water will hardly freeze in here. There are many points of convenience with the barn proper. The entrance to the barn being overhead the whole ground space around the barn is left free to han- dle stock. Horses, cows, sheep and hogs may all have different quarters and be kept separate very much to the advantage of the stock and at a great saving in time. The dampness which is a bad feature of most bank barns is obviated in this plan because there is a circulation of air all around. One of these barns was built on a hilly farm in southern Ohio on a site some dis- S/0£ CLCK/fT/O/V or S/l/V/( S^/fA/ about a barn built after this plan, one of which is the facility of getting all around it. Gates, fences and retaining walls for the bank offer opportunities for stock pens in almost every corner without interfering tance from the house and about twenty feet higher, in fact the house was on one hill and the barn on another with a small ravine separating them. Two round wood- en water tanks were placed near the top 156 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS of the barn and these tanks were kept sup- plied by means of a hydraulic ram work- ing from a running spring of pure clear water back among the hills. To facilitate cleaning the tanks one at a time, they were connected at the bottom with a short pipe. In this pipe were two globe valves and between the valves was the outlet pipe to the house and to the stock watering troughs. The pipe that brought the supply from the spring entered the tops of both tanks in a similar way. Two valves in the cross pipe permitted water to flow into either tank or both tanks as desired. This arrangement of feed and outlet the other tank could be continued in use. In i)ractice it was found desirable to clean both tanks twice each year because if left longer they were inclined to become slimy. About seventy-five head of cattle and horses were kept on the farm besides oth- er stock and their thrift was due in great measure to the unlimited supply of good water within easy reach at all times where they could drink out of cement troughs and cast iron buckets in convenient places about the stable and nearby pasture lots. Besides supplying the stock an inch pipe was carried under the ground to the house, which was in this way supplied with hot and cold running water in the kitchen sink 69-0 ^/9 V ^ACX eohr 3UCO l^ ^^iiftee 1 m>/r3£ JTMAJ 1 1 \ 1 SOJI ST/rt.L -*:<,•-. 1 " 1 i "t"^ 1 1 1 \ f^seo /roo/f r/RST riooff /=>L»f^ pipes made provision for emptying and and bath room. There was also an outside cleaning either tank at any time without hose tap for sjirinkling the lawn and wat- interfcring with the water supply because ering the flower beds. Another hose cock PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 1.57 in the carriage house supplied a hose brush and only left to get married and work on for washing buggies. a farm of his own. Farm hands are quick It might be noted that help stayed along to appreciate modern improvements OP£M/MC /M fLOOff JS'-O"— ■J»££r r^-oo/f H/ry AfOJt^ StlffLL e/VfA/ riOO. ' tff/fCS B/f^A/ /%OOH »/fr nohf / \ >■<*.*•/• i>oeit 'iS'f'J I on the farm year after year. One man Farmers who plan right can keep help and grew up on the place from a chore-boy make money from their work. LARGE BANK BARN— A166 Cost of Blue A bank barn is very desirable where a suitable location can be found but some bank barns are very inconvenient and oth- ers are damp and musty because the barn is not built right. It is not absolutely nec- essary to build a bank barn just because there is a hill on the farm. It is much bet- ter to pick out a plan which is suitable for the location than to blindly follow the lead of some other farmer. A barn that is all right on one farm may be all wrong on the next farm, so much depends on the use Prints, $15.00 made of it, the kind of farming and the lay of the land. This bank barn is 30 feet wide by 70 feet long with a basement full size. The walls of the basement are of stone and the upper structure is heavy frame work braced in such a way that a horse fork could be used in the peak with a track clear from obstruction extending from one gable to the other. There is no objection to making this wall of cement or concrete if stone is 158 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS scarce or if for any other reason a farmer prefers cement construction. This barn is placed sideways to the bank and has two bridges leading to what is commonly termed a double threshing floor on a level with the ground on the upper side. There are two doors on the opposite or south side of the barn but they are designed merely as openings for light and air as occasion requires and to run the carriers out when threshing. It is intended to build the straw and to support them w-ith good solid posts with good stone foundation or thoroughly well constructed cement footings solid enough to prevent settling. A good many such barns give considerable trouble in this respect but not necessarily so because it is easy to make them right in the first place. In all stock barns, but especially where stock is kept in the basement, ventilation is of prime importance. This barn has stack in the yard on this lower side of the barn. The basement is partitioned off into sta- bles for six horses and twenty head of cat- tle as shown in the basement plan. In building a barn like this it is neces- sary to use heavy timbers over the stable tw'O ventilators extending through the roof at the peak. For convenience in feeding there are two chutes running down from the hay mow to the feed alleys on the stable floor. The double threshing floor leaves consid- erable room for storage of farm imple- PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 159 ibo PRACTICAL BARN PLANS r PRACTICAL BARN PLANS i6i 1 62 I'RACTICAL BARN PLANS o ' I V jrfoo-y asaj m n P-bVSCfcf .o£ PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 163 1 ■— .. 0/ X 8 ■ 1 — 1 1 ' _ - 1 - 1 1 1 I '1 0/ X^ 1 1 1 1 xf • 1 >> • 1 1 1 1 ' ■- 1 m ,'T U-l u_ %;.. ■ : — *— ' ^ ' 1 1 1 « ; ^" 1 1 a 1 1 ! r ) 1 . 1 i 1 ' , 1 ■ I : ■ ' lO/ >* ■ It' «J ii ; 1 , } I h — r ! ; 1 1 r-^ , ■ . — 1 ' -=^ 1 -f-l 1 ' 1 ' 1 ' I ' I 1 ■ s 1; t ;: J t I •0 So \ ■ ■ oz-K 8 1 164 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS ments which is very important on most farms. Where the land slants like this the barn yard usually is dry but probably a little tile draining helps every yard. We seldom see a barn yard dry enough in the fall and spring. It is well to consider all these side issues when selecting the site to build on. BALLOON ROOFED BARN— A 143 Cost of Blue Prints, $20.00 A good sized barn with a basement sta- ble, a good threshing floor and a large stor- age for fodder is shown in plan (A143). The wall may be made of stone or cement according to circumstances. Eight feet head room is enough for the cow stable but usually nine feet is better for a horse stable. This barn should front the south and the root house should be, if possible, in a bank on the north side and the feed alley so arranged that a feed car may be run into the root house on a level. It probably would be better to construct this case there is a good deal of outside wall clear of the bank and the windows may be made large. Balloon roofs are becoming quite pop- ular in barn construction, but some of the first ones were not made strong enough and heavy winds wrecked them. This roof however is braced by the gables from every direction which makes the structure a strong one. The threshing floor is open in the center to the roof but it may be floored over at the ends if so desired. The intention is to CLcr^r/OA/ a board partition between the horse stable and the cow stable, but the calf and bull pens would be better without a partition because the air will circulate better and there will be more light in the cow stable. One objection to the basement stable is the difliculty of lighting it properly. A good deal dci)cnds on the exposure. In work the horse fork from this floor; to drive in with loads from the bank at the north and back out. It is a good plan to leave sufficient open- ing to run the straw carrier or stacker up to the mows above. On most farms it would be desirable to have a stack in the yard but it is just as well to put some of PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 165 the straw back in the barn. A balloon roof works splendidly for this purpose. The stacker may be turned to blow the straw to the furtherest end of any gable. It is a good plan to pay careful attention It will be noticed that two hay chutes are provided to carry the hay down to the feed alleys. Hay chutes are a great conven- ience but they are draughty things unless doors are provided. In putting in the up- rioo/f /'//'/V orc/frrir a/f/fA/ to the ventilation of any stable. The air in a basement stable is seldom as good as it should be. There are two air shafts in this plan with openings near the floor. per floor timbers and joists it is a good plan to make them continuous by building them up with two inch plank so as to tie the building together in both directions. i66 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS Remember in building this barn you have ary than the one shown in the plan. In that no upper ties and you must support the case it may be extended to cover the whole roof from the frame below, but this is eas- floor in the granary wing, which should •SECOND /"LOO/? /^/f/V ily done because of the shape of the build- make the granary about twenty-two by ing. thirty feet and the hay shoot would pass Some farmers may need a larger gran- down through it just the same. PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 167 CANADIAN BARN— A183 Cost of Blue Prints, $250.00 This large stock and dairy barn was de- signed for a large Canadian farm and has many good features worth noting, both from the builder's and the dairyman's point of view. The shape of the building was developed with the view of giving the best shelter to the stock. From the points of the com- pass, as shown on the floor plan, it will be seen that the wings of the cow barn and the young stock barn are so situated as to keep the north wind off the stock when it is let out for exercise during the winter months, and at the same time giv- ing them all the sunshine. The building is also arranged to be convenient from the paddocks, pastures, etc., allowing the stock to approach their respective stalls without having to be driven across unnec- essary driveways or through a series of gates. The building is built of wood, on a foun- dation of concrete, which is put in place by excavating the trenches the exact width with drop siding over a layer of thick tar paper. After the concrete between the studding has become hard metal lath are put in place on the interior face of stud- ding and over the concrete, which is then plastered with cement mortar, making a cement wainscoting around the walls, which makes a perfectly sanitary barn. The concrete filled walls help greatly to keep the barn warm in winter and cool in summer, as well as to stiffen the structure against heavy winds. The granary is located at the center of the north side and contains eight large hopper bottom bins for the storage of grain and feed. The bottom of each bin is connected with a spout leading to an elevator boot in the basement, which ele- vates the grain to a revolving head so that the grain can readily be transferred from one bin to another or onto a truck or wag- ons. Some of the bins also have spouts wagon-bed height above the floor for feed- ing purposes. The main driveway of the cH/cf£> JSjECTION slopes to the west, east posts being shorter and west posts being longer. There is a small corn-crib in the northwest corner, and two box stalls at east end. WABASH COUNTY, ILL., BARN— A185 A medium large barn on the 160-acrc the community. It is a plain structure farm of Mr. J. O. Wood, of Wabash Co., with no sheds, and is ninety feet long by 111., one of the most scientific farmers of forty-six feet wide by twenty feet to the PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 179 eaves and thirty-seven and one-half feet to the comb. The frame work consists of sev- en Dents placed fifteen feet apart. There is ' driveway through the center closed with and this must be taken into consideration when planning to build. Some farmers when depending on local carpenters pre- fer to make a building higher at the sides double hinged doors at each end. The large mow above holds ninety to one hun- dred tons of hay which is taken up inside at the end of the driveway, the floor be- ing afterwards replaced and the section blown full of shredded fodder. One side below is used for horses and the other for cattle with mangers adjacent to driveway. It will stable fifteen horses and from twenty to forty cattle. Good ventilation is supplied by small doors on a level with the heads of the ani- mals. The barn is built on solid brick foundation and the frame is of sawed oak timbers; siding is pine ship lap and roof red cedar shingles. It was built in 1903 at a cost of $1,500, Mr. Woods furnishing timber for frame from his own forest and doing all of his own hauling. The only change he would make in building again would be to build four feet higher for greater mow capacity. This barn is unusually high at the sides. Boards twenty feet long for boarding- up and down are not usually easy to obtain with a plain straight roof like this rather than to undertake a curb roof with the lj;T3-RlCK PIERS' CTfOSS, SECTION extra skill and care in framing that such a roof entails. We show this barn as an old fashioned i8o PRACTICAL BARN PLANS type that has a great many advocates among practical farmers. There are res- trictions in barn building as well as other things. What suits one community or one farmer is not to be recommended for another and a great deal depends on the carpenters within reach. Almost any local carpenter can lay out a 'barn like drive through with a hay rack loaded with roughage from the fields for both cows and horses and the driveway is supposed to be floored over with timbers heavy enough to support a mow above. Openings are shown by the dotted lines for putting down hay and straw in winter and there is another opening in the center CORN CRIS i4'-o'xis'-o" ^ QOX_ STAU \£-6'*. ts'-d' XLL PASSAGE. ' ? f " Ho^st. jsfrAUi-S ^ A5>SAGrIl this, take the usual handy men about the place as helpers and push the work along from beginning to finish without a hitch; when the same carpenter with the same help would be bothered to death with the intricacies of a more complicated building. There are more economical barns than this in regard to space because you lose a good deal out of the center of the barn witli such a long driveway. On the other hand one half of the barn is devoted to cows and this driveway answers for a feed room to for the hay fork in summer when the barn is being filled. This center opening should be covered with poles or planks and hay thrown over it to prevent a draught. The hay chutes should be boxed around and closed at the floor level with weighted trap doors for the same reason. One of the greatest objections to openings of this kind is the draught they create. X'entil- ation is absolutely necessary where a num- ber of animals are kept together, but ven- tilation docs not mean a draught. YANKEE BARN— Ai 34 Cost of Blue Prints, $5.00 A style of barn that is often seen in New England is given in plan (A134). The horses and cows occupy part of the first floor, leaving a space in one corner that makes a convenient storage for farm tools. There is a driveway through this part ot the barn and the door is large enough to get in with a hay-rack or a grain drill. The upper part of the barn is used al- most altogether for hay storage, the hay PRACTICAL BARN PLANS ^/0£: ^L£ry-/7T/0N PRACTICAL BARN PLANS being lifted from the driveway by a horse- fork. It makes the stable much warmer to run the partitions in front of the cows and horses to the ceiling above. Unfor- tunately, too many farmers are careless about such things and their animals often suffer in large draughty stalls. This barn is thirty-six feet wide by sixty feet long, not very large on the ground for a farm barn, but the shape of the roof helps out very much in storage. It is floored over with the exception of an opening over the driveway and as this floor is only nine feet above the ground it leaves a very large loft. There are a great many Yankee barns without so many windows, but the win- dows are a great advantage. It is much easier and more pleasant to do work in a light barn and the animals do better. It is difficult to account for so many dark barns, except that the fashion was estab- lished when the country was new and win- dow lights were a great deal more expen- sive than they are now. Glass and sash CA/O £LCy/fT/ON are just about as cheap as siding, there is no economy in building dark barns. BARN FOR A SMALL FARM— A 1 60 ^ Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 This is a small barn for a small farm horses and about fifty fowls and there is where four or five horses are kept besides room for a couple of breeding sows. In a few milch cows and a little other stock, every stable a box stall or two comes in This barn was designed for 10 cows, five handy. A box stall is almost an absolute PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 183 necessity sometime during the year either for sick animals or because some special attention is required. The entire upper part is floored and there is an opening over the storage and implement room to pitch up hay, straw and other forage. This same opening an- swers for passing feed down to the man- gers from the feed lofts. There are windows all around this barn for light and ventilation; a provision that is too often left out when farm barn plans The floor of this stable should be of con- crete with the upper layer an inch thick composed of one part Portland cement and two parts clear soft sand but in mak- ing a floor like this is should be remem- bered that hard smooth cement is slippery and dangerous. The passage way may be marked ofif in diamonds with a regular'tool which presses into the soft cement about one-half inch deep, but if the work is done on the farm and the usual mason's imple- ments are not at hand, a smooth rake han- are made. It is not necessary to shut a barn all up dark, and it is not advisable to do so. Windows do not cost much more than siding and the sun and light let in is a great advantage to stock. QAn// die may be used by imbedding it in the soft cement half its thickness. The handle should not be more than three-fourths or seven-eighths of an inch in diameter. Unless the concrete foundation in this i84 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS driveway is of superior quality the cement top layer should be more than an inch in thickness, perhaps two inches in the cen- ter, tapering to an inch at the sides next to the stalls. In laying a concrete floor in any build- ing it is necessary to run a wall around the outside and this wall should extend below frost. If the ground is inclined to damp- ness, it is better to run a three inch or four inch drain tile all around the wall along the bottom and the outlet of this tile should be carried away from the building eight or ten feet and terminate in a drain. SMALL FARM BARN— A 169 Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 A neat little barn that is well propor- tioned and suitable for a farm of twenty or thirty acres is given in these illustra- tions. There is a threshing floor in the middle with wide double doors in the north side as well as in the south side making a good liberal passageway through the center of the barn. stalls. The cow stable side has a ceiling seven feet high. Cows don't get their heads up as high as horses do and they don't need such a high ceiling. Cows keep warmer in a stable with a low ceiling and if there is plenty of chance for the air to get in and out again they have good ven- tilation. On one side of the driveway is a granary and stabling for three horses with a nine foot ceiling. A third of the barn on the other side of the driveway is made into a cow stable making seven good roomy It seems difficult for some live stock men to understand this phenomenon. The rea- son is the air circulates more freely when it is warm. The body heat of seven cows in this stable with a low ceiling will warm PRACTICAL BARN PLANS X85 ' ■ Q o I *. o |2 \ Hi ntf 1 86 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS the air sufficiently to keep it in circulation. If there are openings where the fresh air can get in, the foul air will find its way out and there will be a constant change. Both the cow stable and horse stable are boarded up in front, but barn boarding usually is not very tight. Unless matched stuf¥ is used there is a little opening be tween the boards that allow for the escape of a good deal of bad air. There usually is considerable space around the doors. There are feed doors in front of the stable so the fodder may be put in from the barn floor. It is hardly necessary to use a horse fork in a barn of this size. The flooring overhead does not cover the whole of the threshing floor so that hay and grain in the sheaf is forked up by hand. It will be noticed by referring to the transverse and longitudinal sections that the timber is very carefully planned for size and length in proportion to the building. Every stick is necessary but there is not a piece too many. KESLER BARN— A189 The illustration shows a very attractive twenty-eight feet wide by fifty-two feet and handy barn. It consists of main part long, eighteen feet to the eaves and thirty- PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 187 five feet to the comb. On the north is a low sheep shed forty feet long by fourteen feet wide, and extending east of this is an- other low addition twenty-six feet long by eighteen feet wide, the north half of which is used for horse stalls, hog house and corn are at work on the farm, as at threshing time. A driveway runs through the main build- ing from east to west, on one side below which are horse stalls and corn crib. On either side of the driveway above are hay FKELTO -RACK I '0 I 130X 3TALL F»AS5>AGEL T HOG- HOU-SI outteif; s-ovi-t ■3,-Q i3-6l CONsT^TAJ-i .MANG-CR FELE-TO ALUHY StsTAGOH ^HHK) \ HORSE Hi/KrWc^^^ TORJvnvlAV \ I I T-6" — .'^-6-) HOTJJSE. ■HaNIs^^ 2>T>ALL_S ^Jk --2S--0- >A- \2-0- ? crib, the corn crib being built over the hog compartment. The south half of this ex- tension is an open shed. Also an open shed extends along the east side of the main building and is equipped with mangers for six horses to be used when extra teams mows which hold about fifty tons of hay which is taken up from the center inside. North of the middle horse stalls and crib are the cow stalls, a three foot feedway running between them. The plan as given includes a leanto on PRACTICAL BARN PLANS the north end which extends all the way across the end of the barn and is attached to the open shed which contains a box stall and a hog house and joins the northeast corner of the main barn. The sTied for sheep is a good arrangement and it is plac- shed like this with a roof sloping to the north makes a very good shelter. In this case the feed rack is built on the north side of the shed and it may be filled by putting down hay from the mow over- head. The mow is not very large, but as J SHILELT= l_OT 1 — ^ RL.AN OF J3ARN MQCc L.OT n s 1 F>i.AN OF ISARN YARD / J BARN l^OT jj I \ y SCAUr. SHZ.13 i^-oxiy-o' ^ \ ed right. Sheep have no Inisiness in the common barnyard; they are likely to get hurt and they are a nuisance at feeding time. Sheep carry their own blanket with them and they require no warmth from the building except at yeaning time. A the shed is only fourteen feet wide feed is easily shoved through from the main barn. This method of feeding is much better tlian putting hay down through an open chute amongst the sheep. They crowd under the falling feed and they get PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 189 their wool so filled with chaff and seeds that it aft'ects the sale of it, besides the dirt and dust is no benefit to the sheep. Keep sheep dry and have a lot for them to run out in during the day time. Drain- age must be looked to or water will ac- cumulate when the snow melts towards spring. As a usual thing it is not a good plan to have a hog house in connection with the barn but on a great many farms only a few hogs are kept and they are allowed to run out on pasture most of the time. In such cases a hog house built into the far end of this northeast shed is permissi- ble, though not advisable. During these days of specialties it is better to have small movable hog houses than to let them come anywhere near the barn. The box stall under this shed will be found very useful to stable a horse or cow when they need veterinary attention, or to hold a mare and colt, or for two or three spring colts during their first winter. In fact it will be a better plan to build two CROSS SUCTION or three box stalls under this shed and make provision elsewhere for the hogs. BARN WITH ELL SHED— A163 Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 A small barn with an ell shed attached is shown in this design. The barn proper which is 28 feet wide by 56 feet long is in- tended to accommodate five head of horses in about one-third of the floor space leav- ing the other part for a driveway with storage for grain, hay and farming imple- ments. The whole of the second floor is given over to storage for hay or grain in the sheaf. A hay bay extends from the ground to the roof in one end of the building but a floor extends over the stable and the great- er part of the threshing floor. The thresh- ing floor section may be partitioned off from the horse stable to make the stable [Warmer. The shed forms an L running across the north and west sides of the barn yard, leaving the south side open to the sun. This arrangement breaks the north and the west wind and provides a comfortable barn yard for winter. Stalls for 12 cows are built in the north / ^'XlK ^^ ITs n 190 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS shed by putting two cows in each stall. This shed has a cement floor built like a sidewalk and the floor extends out under the projecting roof which comes over a few feet into the yard forming a protec- tion against rain and snow. It is something that every barn yard The other part of the shed is open to the weather on the east side looking towards the barn, an arrangement that makes about as comfortable a barn yard as pos- sible to obtain without roofing the whole thing. This little barn with shed attachment should have because there are times when the yard is wet and muddy in spite of cv- is not expensive but is more convenient than some larger structures. The cost is Y NK NK HV £ i n ery precaution. A wide roof dripping into within the reach of any farmer although a barn yard is objectionable but the dri]) he may not have more than 20 acres of from this little short roof is insignificant, land. A transverse section is shown giv- PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 191 ing a good idea of how the building is put together and there is no waste of tim- framed. It is a strong frame that is easily ber. fcEDlt^C ftooA 1 i-A 1 n ^ ^ n. n. SECTION THROUGH SHED GENERAL PLAN. May 6ay THRCSMIflfr TLooq HonsE BAFin ^^L It is possible to arrange a barn like this with sheds that will make a better appear- ance on the farm and house stock better than some expensive barns. CATTLE BARN— Ai 15 Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 A medium sized barn to accommodate eight cows and six horses is given in plan (A115). The size on the ground is thirty- two by forty-four, which is not very large for a farm barn, but it is not intended to be a large one. The first floor is divided into three parts; the horses occupy one, the cows another and the middle section, fifteen feet wide, is left for general pur- poses. It ^nswers for a feed room, storage for a wagon or two and general barn pur- poses. The second floor covers the whole building with a couple of hay chutes to let down feed and straw to the horses and cat- tle. It hardly pays to work a horse fork in a barn of this size. The stuff may be put in by hand from the outside throitgh doors that open down to the floor. There is no waste space in this plan, every foot is made use of to the best advantage, and the barn will be found very useful on farms nrrr T T ^i ■ 92 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS r/^oo/^ r/./1/v or //o/fj^ /7a/d c/tttlb: B/r/f/^ PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 193 where a small number of cows and about the usual number of horses are kept. The with siding. May be made any length. A good feature about this barn is that it /^/./F7-£: rj/j- 00 Of? i'-a'tfo i-e'x/V'-e' g'xr 000/? AOA/Cr/rC//7/A/'/7L sS£:Cr/OA/ plans show the construction in detail. It may be boarded up and down or covered can be added to without interfering with the general arrangement in any way. MOUNT CARMEL BARN— A186 This is a medium large, attractive and serviceable barn on a 120-acre farm. It stands on a solid concrete foundation wall three feet deep and eight inches wide at the top. It is eighty-four feet long, forty feet wide, twenty feet to the eaves, and thirty-eight feet to the comb. There are six bents of fourteen feet span each. The frame timbers are six by eight inches, oak stufif, and the rafters two by five inches of the same material. The siding is matched white pine painted red, and the roof is of red cedar shingles. There is a vegetable and fruit cellar under north end of drive- way twelve by twenty feet by seven feet deep. The hay mow of the barn covers the entire upper floor forty by eight-four feet by twelve feet to top of side posts, and will hold about one hundred tons of hay. It is fitted up with modern hay fork and track, and hay is taken into the mow from •CONCRETTCv, either end, the openings being provided with pairs of swinging doors. Corn-cribs t94 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 195 are bu'lt in two corners as shown and they arp properly ventilated. Running full length of both sides of the barn are self-supporting six foot sheds which allows full ventilation of the stables during summer through the open doors, but protection against both sun and rain. The barn will stable eight horses and twelve cows, the mangers all facing the long feed or driveway. The general ap- pearance is imposing. The cost is $1,800, Mr. Risley doing his own hauling and fur- nishing the frame timbers from his own woods. CONCRETE AND WOOD BARN— A213 Cost of Blue Prints, $15.00 Design of a practical farm barn suitable The basement also contains a room for for a farm of eighty acres where the farm- wagons and buggies with a wash floor de- ^/r?£L zr z- £r wT/OA/ a separate stable for horses is necessary because of the manner in which the other buildings are constructed and occupied. This little stable will accommodate eielit 0/f/K£nr^y \30^ s r^ics ■A-r- o'- so^ sr^jiL a£: Si.£:r>9r/oy jrcr/o/V' 1 sides. If the driveway is gently rounded and the edges kept about two inches low- er than the sod it is easy to maintain a clean track and a well defined edge with- out putting a whole lot of unnecessary work on it. The lawn mower will trim nn « v D 1 1 /^//fJT" n.00/? the main doorway by a very steep bridge because it is often necessary to run car- riages out and in by hand. Of course if it is necessary to set the floor up the drive- way may be raised accordingly, this how- ever very often runs into considerable ex- pense. SECOND fLOOR the grass and a spade used once a month will keep the edge of the drive in good shape. The floor of this carriage house is made solid by running a heavy girder length- wise of the building through the center. Joists are carried from the sills to meet the 204 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS girder. The floor is double, the first layer being an inch thick dressed on one side to make the boards even in thickness, is laid diagonally. On top of this is laid a layer of felt roofing mopped with tar, both un- neath and on top. The upper floor is one and three-eighths matched hard pine. In the stalls two inch planks are laid lengthwise, having an incline of two inches in the length of the stall. These planks are nailed to one cross piece in the middle and another cross piece a little thicker un- der the manger, but the nailing is not very solid because stable planks soon wear through and it is necessary to turn them end for end, sometimes within a year. SMALL BARN WITH CEMENT FLOOR— Ai 12 Cost of Blue Prints, $5.00 This barn is twenty-two feet wide by the plank, back of this the planks have thirty-four feet long and has a cement free ends which facilitate drainage back to floor cushioned with cinders the whole the gutter and makes it easy to remove the u J-U.--^,-.-. U-.^ L>Kf,.U«.i».l>^ v\ WcsT EnD. size of the building, but the standing stalls have a plank floor running lengthwise of the stall over the cement. These planks East E.nD. floor if the planks should split or wear out. The box stall may have an earth floor, if so desired, three or four inches thick, made of good stiff clay wet down and "P '-■-■--'"-'- '-^ '^ -..-■ .. ■■ L-. I... ■■ . 1^. 1^ JJ. are not fastened except to two cross pieces — one under the manger is a two by four laid under the plank to give them the proper pitch. Another cross piece an inch thick is placed in the middle to strengthen rtOfTH diOC tamped level over the cement. Some horse- men prefer a cement bottom with a foot or two of straw ; either way is good enough if the horses have the right kind of care. The oat bin is in the hav loft and the PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 205 corn bin may be put there too if the space on the carriage room floor is needed. By Sliding doors usually are preferred for a horse barn, and half door for ventila- 3 2 having the feed overhead and chutes for tion is a good thing. A horse will stand the different kinds of feed to the floor be- for hours M^ith his head out of such a door lov^, feeding is made easy. with evident satisfaction. VILLAGE STABLE WITH CELLAR— Ai 16 Cost of Blue Prints, $5.00 A very neat, attractive stable for a city is laid down below frost, or it may be car- or village is here given. A good stone wall ried a little deeper and the part under the 'a/fo^ stoiAM 2o6 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS /^/?0/V T ^L £:/^/7 r/o/v 7 ; zsX^ eoi ~sr/>t.L ^s' Mfr/Tjvcii ^oo/r ^ ' 00 r ^^ t-^' 1 — t" L ^r^ rjffjT rioo/f PI/) A/ jrCO/VO nOO/? PlMN i PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 207 carriage room excavated for a cellar, but in this case the retaining wall would be necessary on the stable side because the box stalls are supposed to have an earth floor. Any way, you don't want horses over a cellar. The elevation is pleasing because it is not exactly plain, still there is no great additional expense in building a roof like this or in the little projection from the upper door in front. There is storage room above for hay, straw and oats, and the upper door is wide enough and high enough to admit the supply easily. The doors to the box stalls should be made in halves so that the upper half may be opened and the lower half closed. NEAT BARN FOR HORSES— A 156 Cost of Blue Prints, $5.00 This plan is a very neat arrangement stairway occupies as little space as possi- for a city or village lot where two horses ble. Another nice arrangement about this are kept together with the necessary car- barn is the location of the manure door. riages and harness equipment. The car- riage room with rack for washing buggies The stalls may be cleaned and the manure thrown out at the back as far away as pos- 5) 2 H a V_ / 1 TE> FIOOTT ■ is about as well arranged as it could be and the harness room being under the sible from the carriage entrance and from the side entrance to the man's room. Where horses are kept in town there is usually a lawn that requires attention and 2o8 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS more or less garden work to look after. For this reason it is often necessary to keep a man and it is desirable to have a room that he can occupy outside of the house. It is a good thing to have a man sleeping in the stable where valuable horses are kept so this arrangement works first rate for several reasons. It is hard to keep good men even in town unless they have comfortable accommodations. This building is thoroughly well constructed and the room arranged for the man is more comfortable than similar rooms in some houses. THREE STORY HORSE BARN— An 7 Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 A bank barn for horses, thirty-two by on one side and bins for grain on the thirty-six feet, is shown in this plan. The other. Above this main floor is mow room for hay and straw. This barn will furnish stabling for eleven rffONT CLcy/ir/OA/ 1 '""* ^^ ■■ 1 cvre jr 1 I oiTir-et\//tY • I COffN C/ftB \ SfAf 1 1 1 ' /o-o' /-'•' -- -^ /-//?jr ^LOO/r /=i./)N stable is in floor there the basement and on the main is a driveway with a corn crib /^lOO/i /'Z/V/v O/' »0/fJ, horses in the basement, besides a feed room which is connected with the grain I 1 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 209 bins above and the corn crib as well as hay mow by means of chutes. The hay and oat chutes are perpendicular and pass straight down from the loft and from the grain bin to the feed room below. But the corn chute is built diagonally across under the main driveway floor to carry it over to the feed room. The reason for this is that all feed rooms should be shut off from the stable with a good door. Most of us have had experience with horses getting loose at night and eating more grain than was good for them. This corn chute is twelve by fourteen inches, which is small enough, considering that it is a slanting chute. All grain chutes when built in this way require to be larger than when placed vertical, because there is more friction in the passage of the grain in coming down. The corn crib is ventilated on three sides by using narrow strips nailed to cleats slanting outward. This will an- swer for corn that is reasonably dry, but unless the weather is favorable it is not a good plan to fill a bin like this full of corn without some kind of a ventilator in the middle. CHEAP HORSE BARN— Ai 13 Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 A small barn with two double stalls and one single stall with standing room for another horse is offered in this plan. The barn is twenty-six feet wide and thirty- two feet long, one half of which is parti- tioned off for a stable and the other half noirfH ^lot PRACTICAL BARN PLANS is kept for carriage room and storage. There is no foundation under this barn m 1 ■jc^ ri^Si Ftoon PtAfi III >V*" except stone or brick corners and center supports, but it is a good plan to put a board around under the sill and bury the lower edge in the ground. A barn that is open underneath makes a harbor for rats. It is better to have it boarded up. The stable doors in this plan, both at the north side and at the south side, are cut in two so the upper half may be opened for air and ventilation and the lower one remain shut to keep the animals from going out and in. The plan is as simple as possible to make a barn and still have it look well. It is large enough to be of some use and it has quite a loft for hay. A cheap little barn like this some- times answers the purpose as well as a more expensive one. It is a barn that would suit the average merchant who is engaged in other busi- ness besides actual store keeping. There are many such men who have a pair or more of horses for teaming purposes and who want more stall room than the ordin- ary small horse stable provides. ANOTHER CHEAP STABLE— A132 Cost of Blue Prints, $5.00 Plan A 1 32 is a small carriage house is never satisfied with it and it injures a which mav'be built at very little expense, person's property. It is just as easy to It often happens that a man wants to keep build an attractive stable, one that is well FRonj E-LE-VAjion 5iDe: LutvAyion a horse for his own driving when he don't proportioned and well designed because care to put a great deal of expense on the if rightly laid out it costs but little more stable. It is a mistake in such cases to than a poor looking affair that has a cheap build a cheap looking affair because a man appearance. It is all right to build cheap PRACTICAL BARN PLANS if nobody finds it out, but we often see mis- erable structures that give away the own- er's ambition. Here is a stable that costs very little to in an expensive structure that is permitted to go to seed. The size of this barn is eighteen by twenty-four feet. Its attractive appear- Floor Plah build but you never would know it, especi- ally if it is neatly painted and nicely kept both inside and outside as it should be. There is sometimes more genuine satisfac- tion in a cheap building well cared for than ScconD Floor. ance is due more to the shape of the roof than to the general design or to any other one feature. All village barns should be placed carefully on the lot to look well and so they will not annoy the neighbors. SMALL BARN FOR A VILLAGE LOT- Am Cost of Blue Prints, $3.50 This is just a little affair, only eighteen three or four courses of brick laid arcnnd by twenty feet, but it is big enough to under the sills the building will stt all hold four horses and leave room for a wagon on the storage floor. There is al- so loft enough to mow away three or four tons of hay. It is not necessary to make a very deep foundation for a little barn like this. If the ground is leveled and right probably for a good many years. Many small barns are just blocked up on 212 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS stones placed at the corners and one or two places along the sides but this is ob- jectionable because it makes a harbor un- fiR&T Tuoof? derneath for vermin. The foundation should have some air but air enough will penetrate through the chinks between the bricks if they are laid without mortar. The construction of this little barn is about as plain and simple as it could be and still have it look right when finished. Nobody likes a cheap looking building, but no one objects to a goodlooking build- ing if they get it cheap. The problem is how to build what will be satisfactory in a few years' time. Sometimes an inexpen- sive building may be shaded with trees or screened by vines in such a way as to give — ^^^^3-4-x3&- "M •1 « H ' ■ i >i ^ « ^ «» « H^^^H •Seco/hd Floof^ it a presentable appearance even in winter. An evergreen or two planted along the side, if there is plenty of room, makes a great winter addition to the looks of a stable. Grape vines usually do well if sus- pended by wires from the eaves, but grape vines should never be tacked close to the side of a building, they need air on all sides. SERVICABLE BARN— Ai 72 Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 This is a small barn, twenty feet by thirty-two feet, and contains a carriage room thirteen feet by nineteen feet, which has large double doors in front that will admit the largest size carriage, a wide sin- gle door to the horse stable, and a stair- way leading to the upper floor, which is for the storage of hay, feed, etc., and a man's room if it is desired. This barn contains two single stalls and a box stall. Each stall has a direct win- dow, which is high enough from the floor to avoid too much draft on the horses and it protected by a wire mesh guard. This barn has been designed for utility and is practical in every way. The ar- rangement is convenient, and it is of a neat appearance on the outside. If painted a stone grey, with all trimmings and cor- nice work painted pure white, it would be a credit to any neighborhood. The carriage room has a cement floor, which is slightly pitched from all direc- tions down to the center, where it is pro- PRACTICAL BARN PLANS vided with a floor drain. This will admit the carriages to be washed any place in the room without injury to the floor or 213 with hot tar. The upper floor is then laid and has slightly beveled edges, so that when laid the boards will fit tightly to- gether at the bottom and leaving about an _^ P^Aa/ Cf aX?OUA/0 7'lOOJR the side walls which are wainscoted with Portland cement to a height of two feet six inches. All the walls of the first story and ceil- ing are finished with clear southern yellow pine, beaded ceiling, with two coats of hard oil. This makes a very pretty efifect for a stable and it is at the same time very serviceable. The stall floors are of double thickness one and three-quarter inch floors. The first floor is tongued and grooved, tightly laid, and then covered eighth of an inch crack on the top surface, which is then filled with hot tar. This construction makes a very durable and sanitary floor. The entire stall floor is pitched slightly to the rear to a cast iron gutter with perforated cover and connect- ed with the catch basin and sewer. The second floor has ample storage room for a winter's supply of hay and feed for three horses and is of strong construction. The roof is of shingles and the ventilator gives the building a complete appearance. SEPARATE HORSE BARN— Ai 29 Cost of Blue Prints, $5.00 A small, convenient horse barn, twen- ty-one by thirty-two feet in size, with con- siderable mow room is shown in this plan. Such a barn is very convenient on some farms where for good reasons it is found best to keep horses in a building by them- selves. There are a good many farmers who ob- ject to stabling horses in the same build- ing with other animals, because they don't seem to mix just right. Horses are dif- ferent in their habits from many other do- mestic animals and itseems rightandprop- er to give them a building to themselves when possible. Besides, it often is more convenient to have a small horse barn near the house to save steps in doing the chores. A horse barn is in use every day in the year, while on many farms the cat- tle barns are not used much in summer. Then again a horse barn properly cared for has no disagreeable odor. It may be near the house without causing annoyance. Very often women have driving horses of their own and they like to look after them themselves to a certain extent, and they very much prefer to have them with- in easy reach. Also in case of fire there is a further advantage in having farm buildings separate. The old English plan was to scatter farm buildings far enough apart to pre- 214 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS i3'6-y7N Floor Plapi. PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 215 vent a general conflagration in case one should take fire, but farm labor is less ex- pensive in England and everybody knows that it costs more to care for animals housed in separate buildings because of the running back and forth and because you haven't a great big storage room all under one roof where feed may be hoisted by horse power and returned to the feed- ing floor by gravity. In building a little horse barn like this it is better to put down good foundation walls reaching below frost. By making the passageway floor about three inches higher than the floor behind the horses an incline will be provided sufficient to keep the feed room floor dry as well as to give the necessary drainage slope to the stand- ing floor for the horses. Most horsemen prefer to floor the horse stalls with planks, whether the bottom is cemented or not. This may be done be- fore the partitions are put in, but it is bet- ter to plank each stall separately. In eith- er case select planks two inches thick with tongue and groove matching and lay them with coal tar between. Give the floor a slight incline, say two inches fall in a dis- tance of eight feet. It is much better in a barn of this size, built for this purpose, to cover the whole bottom with a cement floor, cementing tight up against the walls all round and leaving a slight depression behind the horses; a sort of rounded open drain not more than an inch deep and slope the drain to the manure door so it is easy to wash the stalls and sweep the water out doors. A horse stable after this order will be found very convenient on any farm whether other buildings are calculated for horse stabling or not. LITTLE VILLAGE STABLE— A135 Cost of Blue Prints, $5.00 The little barn, eighteen by twenty-four partitions answers the purpose very well. fe^t, as shown in the plans and elevations To keep the cold from blowing down is a very satisfactory design and can be through the opening a light door with a ^1 >X< >x< used in either village or city. It is not ex- pensive, in fact, it is probably as cheap as any satisfactory structure could be. It is better not to take up room in such a small barn in building a stairway, as the upright ladder placed against one of the pulley, cord and counter weight may be made to shut over the opening. If there is a boy in the family he will find a way to rig up a workbench in the front corner of the carriage room be- tween the door and the first window. It 2l6 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS is easy to encourage boys to work with tools, especially since the graded schools have taken up manual training. The /^//?ST r/.oo/^ /=>/./?A/ schools have added tone to the work, boys don't consider it labor now, it is part of their education and it is an important part, too. Truth may be taught in a more thorough manner through mechanics than by any other means. The principle of learning a thing by doing it is just as val- uable now as it was in Froebel's time. As a general thing a boy's work with tools is not very valuable when judged from a mechanical standpoint or from the amount of money that the finished product would bring, but it very often has a great educational value to the boy that is little appreciated by the older members of the family. The fundamental principles of mechanics permeate all nature. Animals are built on the best mechanical principles. There is a very close connection between mechanics and nature. Mechanics point the way to the connecting link between natural phenomena and commercial suc- cess. Mechanics and mathematics also are very closely related, but the natural live boy loves the one and hates the other. No woman wants a boy tinkering in the house, but he can spend many happy hours in the barn without disturbing anyone. ENGLISH CARRIAGE HOUSE— A99 Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 Small artistic stables are more common in England than they are in the United States, possbily because the country is older and the people have had more time to develop an artistic taste in such mat- ters. An English gentleman likes to keep his cob and cart. He wants a good smart turn-out that presents a respectable if not a dashing appearance; then he. likes to have things in keeping at home, so he maintains a very neat carriage house and stable. Some ot these carriages houses are older than the proprietor but you would never know it to look at them. They are kept in such repair and they nestle amongst the hedges and trees in such a pretty homelike way that you never think about their age or intrinsic value. You get the impression at once that they are proper and proper goes a long way in England. You don't wonder that thev have verv neat stables just the right size and that they appear modestly retiring away to the back end of the pretty garden. It just seems to come natural. Their great, great grandfather or their double great uncle did the same thing long before they were born so all they have to do is to follow precedent. The English carriage house of today was built after hundreds of years of ex- perimenting until the location of every plank, the size and direction of every door and window was determined without any further question in regard to the possi- bility of the slightest improvement. It is put back on the lot in the furtherest corner from the house. The approach to it is through an arched or pillored opening in a beautifully well kept hedge. The drive- way is not straight. English gardeners keep just as far away from straight lines as they possibly can. Somebody discov- PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 217 ered in the time cf King Alfred that curved of the kinks out by injecting a few lib- paths and roadways in gardens were prop- eral doses of English conservatism so that er. Some of the old enthusiasts went a now after a good many generations the gmmiixiiaxim^Mp^ cmuND rioov pzaa/ J5^Z.^a-^±^l step too far and got them crooked. This driveway from the lane through the back was frowned on for a century or two of the lot to the stable is gently curved, until succeeding generations pulled some The stable also is partiallv screened from 2l8 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS view by hedges, vines and trees: This is proper in England, it is good sense in any other country. The difficulty of doing things just right in the United States is that we are in too much of a hurry to get satisfactory re- sults. We get ready to build a stable one day and have the material on the ground before breakfast the next morning. We haven't decided where to put the thing so we go out with the carpenter harboring the idea that his time is going on and that while we detain him he is not engaged in sawing or hammering. For economy sake we must decide instantly. The street line is guessed at and the barn placed just a little inside. After it is up and the work- men have gone there is plenty of time to think it over and regret not having done some things differently, but the barn is up now, it has cost a little more than we counted on, they always do cost more than we expect, and we always expect they will when we start in, but at anv rate we haven't any time or money now to change things or even level off the ground prop- erly. We haven't figured on a curved driveway, that is all nonsense, but we lay down some planks to keep us out of the mud. The finish is not satisfactory to our- selves or anybody else, but we have a barn and we have secured it in character- istic American hustle fashion so we ought to be satisfied. The plan (A99) shows the general ar- rangement. There is a room partitioned off in the gable upstairs for the man. A stairway going up from the carriage room lands in this upper room. The feed bins at the back of the stalls connect with the storage bin on the upper floor by means of spouts as indicated. There is a carriage room that is large enough to look well and to accommodate a number of vehicles. In- stead of having a harness room there are pegs for harness in a corner of the car- riage room and the harness is covered with curtains hung to a wire overhead. SMALL SUBURBAN BARN— A2 15 Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 Showing a barn erected for the accom- member to start decay modation of two horses and two cows. It is 26 feet wide by 34 feet long and is con- structed of frame with cement plaster "rough cast" exterior wall and stained on account of dampness absorbed from the ground, and if this essential member of the structure is rotted away the balance will soon fol- low. Any method employed in the con- m m m m shingle roof. It is set on a foundation of concrete which runs one foot higher than the ground floor, thus avoiding all dani])- ness from the floor and ground coming in contact with the wood construction, which would otherwise soon decay. The sill of a barn is always the first i i ATOTTfi rLr\/4TIOrJ struction of a building that will lengthen the life of the sills is worth looking into. The roof of a building is justly consid- ered the most important part ; a^ building" can be built without much of a foundation PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 219 by setting it on posts or masonry piers, and for a few years perform all its require- if made without projection beyond the ver- tical walls, is of little value, as it will al- zAyr CLCioxioN n'^jT r^zi/AT,^ ments, but the roof can never be omitted; and like the sill, it must be kept in good j'z.aas ?='ZAM ■ condition or the building will soon go to ruin. One of the most important parts of the roof is the gutter or cornice which. low the rain to run down the sides of the building and soon make the walls look weather worn and streaky from the dust which is washed down the walls with the rain. A well built cornice with a good pro- jection not only avoids this trouble, but also protects the walls from the hot sum- mer sun as well as giving architectural grace to the design. The outside walls of this building are constructed of 2 inch by 4 inch studding, 16 inches on centers, sheathed on the out- side with matched sheathing, then covered with waterproof building paper; then i inch by 2 inch furring strips placed 16 in- ches on centers (or over each studding) ; then lathed and cement plastered. This not only makes a very durable wall, but is warm in winter and cool in summer. The carriage room and cow stalls have cement floors and the box stalls are of plank. There is a large hay room on the second floor, a grain bin under the stair- way, and a harness case near the horse stalls. GOTHIC BARN— A181 Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 If the horse barn is near the house and if the house has a steep roof the barn should have a similar roof to be in keep- ing. We often see a house of one style and the other buildings nearby built on entirely different lines. If the house is new and the other buildings old there is some excuse for such incongruity, but in most cases the house is built first and the barn is added to the lot some 3^ears after- wards. In the meantime some architec- tural fad has taken possession of the neighborhood and every building erected must bear the marks of the new fashion. There is too little originality in build- ing. It is much easier to follow the local 220 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS trend than it is to hunt out a plan that is suitable for individual needs. In offering this barn plan it is with the idea that there are many locations where the style of building and the shape of the roof will match the house and other surroundings better than any other plan. A roof like this is not economical to build if the owner is influenced especially by dollars and cents, but there is a style some way so it is not obtrusive. But there is something wrong with a man who will build a gothic house and a barn with a flat roof on the same lot. His ideas have been dwarfed in some direction. His property shows it because it does not balance up right. A lot with its buildings must be one homogenous whole or it shows at once that it has not been arranged rightly. A DE>5/CA/ rOR A^MALL 3APA^ 0//Dr £LJfVATION^ WITH rOUR ^TALL>S about it that shows up well for the amount of money it costs. There is a great deal in appearance. iWhen we have things right we have something to appreciate for a long time to come. If the house has a steep roof we cannot tolerate a barn with a main roof that is, say one-third pitch and a lean-to that is even less. If the mischief has been done conditions may be somewhat improved by moving the barn back well out of the way and hav- ing it covered with vines or screened in village stable may be made an ornament to the property or a damage to the owner and an eyesore in the neighborhood. Neighbors often say unkind things about the owner of the barn on the next lot. Not always on account of the looks of the thing; they may be aggravated by the per- fume or the noise of the chickens when they want to sleep in the morning. A good many folks don't like neighbors and it is generally for some such reason, but neighbors are necessary and the PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 221 neighbors sometimes build barns and they don't always keep them nicely. It requires a level-headed man to lay out a lot to the best advantage and put up buildings in such a way that no one can find fault with them. There is something about the arrange- ment of this barn inside that will appeal is a good plan to have some little cupboard like this that may be locked when occasion requires it. In almost every stable medi- cines are kept and they should be out of the way of children. It is a splendid pre- caution to keep medicine bottles locked up. A great many accidents have come just from carelessness in this respect. l/^/KJ WOM rEED TiOOM r/R-^T 7=LOOR PAA,'\/ ^ECOA/O T'AOOK to every orderly person. The stalls are right for convenience both in handling the horses and for cleaning the stable. The carriage room is quite large and conven- ient with two store rooms, one for gen- eral garden tools with a place for small work bench on one side, a necessity in almost any village lot where a man is kept to do the chores. The other storeroom is intended for harness. There is also a case which comes in very handy to keep the smaller things and those that are valu- able. The glass doors slide past each other and may be easily locked shut. It Every village stable that is large enough should have a room for the man ; it may not be necessary at all times, but the time will probably come when this room will be found very useful. In this case it is built in one of the large gables where the roof is steep enough to lath and plaster right on the rafters. It is a case of build- ing a roof and a side at the same time and it makes a saving in expense in one way or the other. You either don't pay for the roof or you don't pay for the side of the room. CEMENT ROUGH CAST BARN— A182 Cost of Blue Prints, $15.00 A carriage house and stable plastered on the outside with cement mortar with a rough cast finish is shown in plan (No. A182). There are locations where a base- ment for laundry purposes under the house is not desirable. This plan for a carriage house with a laundry attachment was de- signed especially to meet such cases. In PRACTICAL BARN PLANS New Orleans, La., such carriage houses This building is substantial in appear- are quite common. There is a great deal ance and the manner of construction is of made ground and the sewers are not very satisfactory for a warm climate. The 1^ TVfcJAcr zr^^^ATvo/v deep enough to permit much underground outside cement work when properly put building, so that basement laundries are on with metal lath is very durable. It not common. To meet just such condi- looks well and is not expensive. ffl m m f?r^7^ ir^z:KA77<>v tions stables with laundry rooms just seem to fill the bill, especially when they are well designed and built to suit indi- vidual needs. The usual conveniences found in small barns arc provided in this building, but it is a little more elaborate than ordinary. The box stalls are especially large and PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 223 roomy, there is a larger feed room than is customary and the harness room is a Httle larger than we usually find in a small which not only furnishes hot water for washing and for stable use, but to warm the stables and the servants' rooms in win- LETT -JSCe ZLev/iJ^/O^^ /T/Sf^J,!S£ £^^UA77iiV or medium sized stable. But the especial features about the building are the rooms ter. This laundry room is also large enough to hold the clothes lines in stormy for servants with an entrance separate weather, and there are plenty of windows from the carriage house, and the laundry for light. with its hot water heating apparatus, Laundry work is a problem in the south 224 pr.ACTICAL BARN PLANS as well as in the north. Those who get along with the least friction usually have the best possible conveniences for doing the work. Large light laundry rooms The building is large enough to match up well with a good big residence and the de- sign and style of the roof shows character enough for a house, in fact many costly supplied with plenty of hot water and fur- nished with good machinery and tubs that are rightly placed and fitted with the nec- essary faucets, waste pipes, etc., offer more inducements to do good work and less oc- casion for complaints than ordinary. There are many advantages in having the laundry room away from the house. It avoids confusion in the house on wash days and the odors of dirty steam and soapy water are done away with. For a pretentious property a stable building of this design and size looks well. .^BTo/^ neon^fit} noo?^ houses are built with roofs that are less attractive than this one. A carriage house like this is not complete without a good wide drive leading to it. This design re- quires a smooth pavement in front of the building one-third wider than the building itself. It should have a pretentious ap- proach to give it proper setting. Some- times an inferior building can be given a royal appearance by an elaborate entrance. A driveway to the stable is part of the en- trance. In this plan the inside is right, the outside looks well. HORSE AND COW HOUSE— A131 Cost of Blue Prints, $5.00 A small carriage house with stable room a good sized lot in the city or village. A for two horses or a horse and a cow is a horse stall makes a splendid stall for 3 very convenient thing when a person has cow, better than what is ordinarily de- PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 2Z5 signed for a cow stall because there is more room and it gives more comfort. A cow appreciates comfort and will give which reach' s from the loft to the manger below with openings for both stalls, which is a very convenient arrangement and is /^/7o/vr cLCir/rr/Ofj enough more milk to pay for it. Of course a cow in a horse stall needs plenty of bed- ding, but where only one cow is kept it is easy enough to furnish all the litter necessary. There are a good many designs for small 3/OC CLEir/ir/ON worth a good deal just to keep the hay dust and chaff out of the horse's mane and fore top. It also leaves the feed boxes in the corner of the mangers for grain and other feeds. A carriage house like this may have a -/t'-o' -4 - — ly'-o"- rtooff ^ /=iflN carriage houses, some of which are decid- edly homely. A good many of the fancy buildings are too expensive. Here is a comparatively cheap structure, but it is all right for looks and it is a convenient stable to do work in. There is a hay chute S£COA/£? FLOOR plank floor or the floor may be left out en- tierly and the ground leveled up with cin- ders except the stalls and the very best stall floor is made of stiff clay pounded in wet. Some of the most successful horsemen prefer a clay bottomed stall. CARRIAGE HOUSE AND STABLE— A127 Cost of Blue Prints, $5.00 The illustration on next page shows a feet on the ground and fourteen feet high carriage house and stable twenty by thirty to the plates. The ceiling is eight feet six 226 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS inches which is about as low as you can have a ceiling in a carriage house because really requires about three times as much room to stable horses this wav. FRonj E-LE-VAyiori. 3oe' you must have room enough for a top buggy. For this reason the doorway must be about the same height. The internal arrangement of this stable is different from most small carriage houses. There is a box stall about nine feet square. It is difficult to plan a decent sized box stall in a small stable. They run into room too fast. Nothing looks so comfortable for a good horse as a roomy box stall. If the horses had their say about it there would be more box stalls, but it Carriacc Roon 'Box S^Aki.. Floor Furp*. HORSE SHED— Ai 2 1 On farms where a number of brood mares are kept and colts of all ages coming along, it is much better to have a separate shed for winter feeding for the colts than let them run at large among the cattle. One colt might not do much damage in the general barnyard, but colts are mis- chievous and one teaches another. PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 227 A light shed may be built on this plan, thoroughly banked up in the fall to keep which is iifteen by thirty-four feet, at very out the cold winds. In banking up a shed little expense. It should front on the stack like this set a board all around the outside /-7/r/v6£r/f Y 3y-i> yard and face the south if possible. For to keep the earth away from the building economy it is placed on cedar posts let in proper. Fit the board nicely so there are the ground below frost, but it should be no chinks to let in the cold draft. WELL PLANNED HORSE BARN— A171 Cost of Blue Prints, $10.00 To make this article more comprehen- essary feed bins, harness room, wash sive to those interested in barn construe- room, grain room, carriage room, storage tion we show an exact reproduction of rooms, etc. A,> >• : ^ / / -V ,[^- — v^.,-,gi-.:^i :^ v.. trap door for throwing down hay and bed- ding, and also for the hoisting of hay from the hay wagon in stormy weather. One of the roof ventilators has a shaft running down to the ceiling of the horse stable for ventilation, and is at this ceiling ed ofif into a dust-proof room for the stor- age of vehicles, etc. This building is built on a foundation of stone piers, so as to admit a free circula- tion of air under the floor and to prevent the floor from becoming cold in the horse 230 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS stable it is built, as will be seen in the detail above the longitudinal section, by first resting the joists upon the sills, then floored with a matched floor i inch thick, which is covered with a heavy building paper, then by 2 by 2 inch strips nailed one over each joist. The space between these strips is filled with mineral wool, then this entire surface is floored with a strong floor iH inches thick, and on this are laid strips of various thickness to re- ceive and form a pitch to the stall floors. On the sills over each stone pier is set a 6 by 8 inch post for the support of the sec- ond story floor and roof. These posts run up to the plate, which is a 6 by 8 inch tim- ber, and at the second story joist level there is a 6 by 8 inch timber notched in between these posts for the bearing plate of the second floor joist. All these timbers are braced at all intersections with 4 by 6 inch braces. The outside walls are form- ed by filling in between these bents with 2 b)' 6 inch studding spaced 2 feet on cen- ters and well spiked to the floor joist, sills and plates. The inside surface of these studding are covered with heavy building paper, then ceiled with matched flooring, and the outside surface of studding is also covered with paper and then sided with drop siding. The roof is of cedar shingles dipped in moss-green creosote stain, which in contrast with the white painted walls, makes a very artistic effect. The interior of the carriage room is finished in yel- low pine beaded ceiling. RESIDENCE BARN— A2 16 Cost of Blue Prints, $15.00 A residence barn to accommodate three room is of good proportions and has a vehicles and three horses. The carriage wide door at front and rear. The har- RV.;nwav Wash Rack- Harness Pm. 12.feXb'6" Carriage Room ^JlSS^ Stall J'OXIO^O" Stall ff'O'XiO'O Passage MansRm. avxioo" Box Stall II 0X100" RuriWAY ness room and man's room are of good size, and conveniently located. The construction of this barn is of the balloon frame; there is a concrete found- ation. The ground floor is of cement and PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 231 all rooms are cement wainscoted up to the window sills, making the walls water- proof. The exterior design is of a modern style with a Japanese style of roof which gives the building a very odd but charm- ing artistic appearance. There are so many windows in this sta- ble that it is very light inside and they give it an expensive look outside. It is not generally recognized that windows are about as cheap nowadays as any other part of the building. As soon as people gen- erally grasp this idea all farm buildings will be made lighter, more sanitary and more cheerful. The side walls are rough cast cement up to the windows and the balance of ex- terior vertical walls sided. The roof is of moss green stained shingle, which in connection with the white siding, grey cement and brown stained trimmings, makes a very striking exterior that would do credit to any neighborhood where the commonplace board-and-batten barn would be objectionable. This barn, though somewhat artistic in its outline, can be built at a reasonable price, and con- tains no work that cannot be executed with materials that can be bought from the stock of the lumberyard. The interior makes very good provision for two or for three horses, there being two single stalls and a large box stall. The man's room is well finished and is very pleasant. The harness room is large and nicely lighted. There is a large conven- ient loft for hay and grain storage. The entire barn is exceptionally well lighted and ventilated. SMALL LIVERY BARN— Ai 38 For a village or a small city this plan of- fers a comparatively cheap building that ^/roMr CLcr^noM siO£ £i.£ri/wr/o/v may be used to advantage by a man who keeps four or five horses for hire. Usually in such cases it is not necessary to have a great deal of feed storage room because the hay is baled and sometimes the straw comes in bales. A good harness room is necessary and it often happens that the hostler wants to sleep in the stable and this room, ten by fifteen feet, is sufficient for such purposes. The problem in all livery stables is how to take care of the different rigs. There are cutters and sleighs to be taken care of nine or ten months in the year, when they are not in use, and there are wagons in the way almost all the time. Storage room is expensive and sometimes ground room is an object. Too often public stables are littered around outside of the building with old trash that should be sold for junk or burned up. Such conditions are more no- ticeable in the smaller places. But pride in keeping up one's property is just as val- uable and just as necessary in a village as in the city. Perhaps liverymen and black- smiths are a little more careless in this re- spect than any other class of citizens. Why 232 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS this should be so is a mystery. It costs place for everything and everything in its nothing to be neat and neatness attracts place is a suggestion which applies to liv- tt D/?//^^A^y^y /^Loo/? pi/7/v or ^n/iLL L/ys/^y trade in these lines as well as others. From erymen general observation it would seem that a country. and blacksmiths all over the LIVERY STABLE— A2 1 8 This stable is of frame construction, built on concrete foundation and has con- crete floor throughout the entire ground floor area. The front building, contain- ing the office, carriage room, wash room, etc., is separated from the building con- taining the horses by a cement fire-proof wall and fire-proof door. The entire ex- terior wall surface of building is covered with galvanized iron siding and a corru- gated iron roof, making the exterior prac- tically proof against fire. The boiler room has brick walls, fire-proof doors and ce- ment floor and ceiling. With these pre- cautions against fire, electric light being used for illumination, the building is reas- onably safe, although built with wood walls. The stable contains thirty stalls, one of which is a box stall for sick horses, with double doors from the yard and single door from driveway. All stalls have re- movable plank floors laid on the cement floors, with slight pitch toward the rear of stalls. The stall partitions are of match- ed plank, four feet high and have an iron guard on top, making top of guard seven feet above floor. Each stall is provided with a hay manger and feed box. There is a hay chute of galvanized iron between PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 233 each two stalls, this hay chute running from second story floor to top of hay man- filled with at least four inches of cement to prevent the horses from biting into the ■ ■■Hi I m 7^/^(D/^ ~r 7^/^e: \yx\cr /o /w ger; is built larger at the bottom than at the top to prevent hay from clogging. The bottom of mangers and feed boxes are planks, and the front edge of the manger is covered with Strap iron fastened with counter-sunk screws. 234 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS The carriage room has a clear 22 foot span and is 50 feet long. At the rear it contains a vehicle hoist or elevator to ad- ditional storage room and paint shop, lo- cated at the rear end of second floor over carriage room. The front end of second floor facing the street, contains a comfort- able flat, consisting of a parlor, living room, dining room, pantry, kitchen, bath- room and three bed rooms of good size, all rooms having outside windows and good ventilation. The second story over the horse stable contains a large hay room, bed- ding room, storage room, and grain bins. PITCH OF BARN ROOFS— A228 One-third pitch means that the peak of a roof is about one-third of the width of the building higher than the plates, that is if the building is thirty feet wide the peak has an elevation of 9 feet, scale measure above the plates. Half-pitch would be half the diameter higher, or fifteen feet above the plates, while full pitch would be 26 feet scale measure. What interests a farmer most in the pitch of a barn roof is the storage capacity as compared with the expense. Any pitch from one-third up is a good one so far as service and lasting qualities go. A half- pitch might last a little longer than a third- pitch, but there is not enough difference to pay for the extra cost. Full pitch is used only for architectural eflfect except in cases of gambrel roofs when half pitch or even steeper is often used for the lower portion between the gambrel and the eaves. In gambrel roofs the upper section often is as flat as one-fourth pitch while the dis- tance from the curb to the eaves is some- times very steep and both sections are short. Some farmers claim that it is just about as cheap to carry the sides of a barn a few feet higher and use a plain one-third pitch roof while others feel that it is a great deal better to set the plates at the usual height " and carry the roof up in gambrel roof form. It depends somewhat on the size of the building and proportions, and the length of material that can be secured. Twelve and sixteen foot boarding are the com- monest lengths. The higher you go above the plates the more expensive is the build- ing in proportion, because scaffolding must be higher and all work above a cer- tain height costs more. The work on the roof is a little different because the roof is its own scaffold. Most people like the looks of a gambrel roof on a barn, and looks count for a good deal after the build- ing is finished. Feed Lots and Cattle Sheds FEED LOTS FOR BEEF CATTLE— A184 WHERE cattle are fed in large numbers it pays and pays well to fit up prop- erly for the business. In the corn belt, buy- ing thrifty young cattle and finishing them for the market, is a splendid business in the hands of men who understand how to buy, how to feed and how to sell. The old fashioned way of putting a fence around a mud-hole and confining a bunch of cattle in the mire for weeks or months at a time ceased to be profitable long ago, but unfortunately some men haven't found it out. Considerable engineering ability is required to plan and construct feed lots for the accommodation of large numbers of cattle in such a way as to make the ani- mals comfortable and to economize labor. Plan (A 184) has received very careful attention in this respect. The storage barn and silos are set on a ridge of ground slop- ing preferably to the southwest. The feed lots, thirty-two by seventy-two feet in size, including the shed, are fenced off one after another as many as needed. Two yards only are shown in the drawings be- cause no matter how many you have each pair of two would be a repetition of this pair. The lots might be extended a quar- ter of mile holding the same order. It works better if the ground is about eight feet lower for the feed lots than it is for the storage barn and silos as this gives a chance to run the track from the floor of the storage barn over the heads of the cattle high enough to leave a pas- sageway under for a pair of horses and a manure spreader. Eight feet in the clear is little enough and it is high enough be- cause straw as well as feed will be brought to each lot by a car on the overhead track. The car is made large for this purpose, be- ing four feet wide at the bottom, six feet wide at the top, four feet high and eight feet long. When filled with silage it will make quite a load, but one man can move it if the wheels are large and kept well oiled and if the truck is level and true. Some feeding yards have an incline track, but this is not necessary, in fact it is ob- jectionable because the car will never stay where you want it and it is uphill work getting it back to be refilled. Make the track absolutely dead level and perfectly straight. Two by fours plated on top with two inch band iron that has been hammer- ed straight and true will answer very well but the two by fours must be well sup- ported and thoroughly spiked in place. In building the track remember that you are trying to save time and labor at every feeding period for a number of years to come. You want the track so true and the car wheels to fit so perfectly that the car will run along without much friction after getting started. One man with a rig like this that works right should feed a large bunch of cattle because he can take advautage of his work. 236 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS CORN LJ SECTION OF CRIB FEEDER PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 237 I I U CROJSS SECTION or 5HED ?T 1 / <^ 1 ^^ 1 5HEATHIMG ^^^ ^ i_AiM OF cattle: SHUn 6 IX-O — 3 > QjV ^^^O -O- sx.eTi3-[r^ /^OcsT^ nr I'll I I ' I I I I 1 r JZPl/^T TSox-^ TT 7=^^y^ \ some of them are fitted with glazed sash. The extent of the cotton surface depends upon the size of the house, the number of fowls kept in a pen and the climate. In the far north you cannot have a great deal of cotton surface without making the house top cold, but right here is a point to of cotton. Cotton does not mean canvas or thick heavy ducking, it means some- thing that will let the air through freely. Some poultrymcn say the thinner the bet- ter, but probably a cheap grade of cotton such as you buy retail for about four cents a yard will answer the purpose best. And PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 247 you want to tack the cotton on loose, leave it baggy so it may flap in the wind because every flap jars the dust loose. If the cotton is drawn tight dust will settle and clog the little openings. MUm Mil ^J^JTTllr B II 11 II il Some poultrymen cover all the openings with cotton and have glass sashes inside that they may slide shut at night or during extremely bad weather. When the cotton ventilators are made right and kept right the air in the poultry house will be good. In the north make no openings into the poultry house except in front, unless you have front yards to interfere. In that case make the doors in the ends right against the front corner. For material use matched stuf¥ with building paper either one or two thickness- es according to the degree of cold you are obliged to guard against. A good house is made with a light frame work of two by fours covered with seven-eighth matched boarding dressed smooth on one side and the smooth surface turned in. The two by fours are dressed on all sides to make them smooth. Avoid every possible rough- ness because it will hold dust. Dust will harbor microbes as well as lice and mites, which leads us back to one main branch of our text, cleanliness. Have no eave projection at the back. Cover the matched boarding with tar paper commencing at the back at the ground and work up to the high part of the roof in front. Make good joints nailed down into fresh tar. Put the tar roofing paper on in such a way that it will hold standing water, then you know that neither water nor air can get through. Cover the ends of the building in the same way. Dropping boards are placed against the back of the house fitted close against cleats to prevent draughts and hung with hooks so thev will lift up out of the way to clean the floor. Six inches above the droppings boards are loose roosts that may be easily lifted oflf and carried outdoors for cleaning. The oftener they are carried out and given a heating up in the sun the better. Some poultrymen prefer what they call nesting rooms. These may be easily made by placing two rows of nest boxes to- gether with a passage between so built that they may be easily moved about or carried out doors. Room A shows such an arrangement. There is a large dusting box on top with wooden pins projecting to prevent roosting on the edge of it. In room B the dust box is built on legs so it stands up eighteen inches to two feet above the floor. This leaves the ground space clear for litter for scratching and keeps the contents of the boxes free of straw and trash so the hens can dust themselves better. Then a box elevated a little catches the sunlight through a window to better advantage. 248 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS Hens love to dust themselves in the sun in winter time. If the boxes are large enough to hold three or four hens at once it is all the better because it fosters a sort of hen sociability. If you watch them at such times you will notice that they appar- ently talk together and enjoy a little hen gossip among themselves. It is only by studying the habits of poultry that we can get at the proper management. Poultry management to be successful depends on little things and there are a great many of them. This house may be built directly on the ground, or it may have a cement or stone wall under it. The floor inside may be earth or cement, but never of wood. Earth is the best, cement is rat proof, but no matter what the floor is you must have the sills so imbedded that there will be no draft. This may be done in a dozen different ways. Perhaps the simplest is to nail a board on the sill that reaches down into the ground eight or ten inches. There is no hard and fast rule for the way in which it is done so long as you accomplish the purpose, that of keeping the air from blow- ing through. You want air but you don't want to admit it under the sills or through cracks in any part of the building. For cleaning the droppings boards you need a half barrel mounted on wheels and it should be used every day. One great value of such a convenience is that it will be used when an awkward afifair would be neglected as much as possible. A cart like this costs very little and is worth a great deal. For the same reason we want some kind of an absorbent to sprinkle over the roosting boards. Roosts may be kept clean if you go about it in the right wav. It is well worth the effort. PRACTICAL POULTRY HOUSE — A168 A single section of a two-pen poultry house fourteen by twenty-four feet is given in this plan. The house of course may be any length by adding any number A passageway on the north side, where the roof is high to make head room, is par- titioned ofif and the work of feeding is done along this passage. A door lifts up Passage .SEoyioN. of twenty-four foot sections. It is placed so that the windows look to the south to gather all the sunlight possible. Groumd Plan. in front of the roosts from this passage- way to facilitate cleaning. It is not neces- sary to enter the scratching room very often because most of the attention may be given from the alleyway. With the ex- ception of the space occupied by the dust boxes the whole floor, except this passage- way, is given over to scratching purposes as the roosts and dropping boards are ele- vated so the chickens can work under PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 249 tiiem. A section of this house will ac- commodate from twenty to thirty birds according to size. Poultry men argue by the hour about the necessity of an alleyway. There are many different opinions. Some think an alleyway is worth all the room it takes up just to prevent annoying the fowls, when feeding by going in and out from amongst them. Other poultry men think that chickens ought to be tame enough to pay very little attention to the feeder when he goes about his work, but it is generally noticeable that a hen makes quite a fuss when she thinks she is about to be cornered. This applies to hens that are ordinarily tame, as well as those that are ordinarily wild. HEXAGONAL POULTRY HOUSE -174 The house shown is in the shape of a hexagon and makes a very handosme and convenient house, and is just the thing for the city lot where space is limited. The ground or floor plan will show you the interior arrangement. The size of this house is ten feet six inches, and each of the sides is six feet three-quarters inch in signed that the ground floor shall be of earth, which is, in most cases, the most satisfactory floor material, and should be used whenever practicable. Cement floors are also good, however; where they are used the poultry house will generally pre- sent a more attractive appearance and can be kept cleaner, with less labor, than a Et-tVATION. length. The corner posts are six feet long and the center of the house nine feet from floor to peak of roof. The house should be built with one window facing di- rectly south and the other facing south- east, thus allowing an abundance of sun- light to enter the building in the morn- ing, when it is most needed. house having earth or wooden Wooden floors should not be used In nearly all the plans given it is de- can be avoided. floors, if they The modification of the popular open front poultry house is given in this plan. It is suitable for two lots of hens of forty or fifty each, according to the size of the breed. The house is forty feet long and ten feet wide, divided into two compart- ments. Each compartment has a warm room and scratching shed which is open OPEN FRONT POULTRY HOUSE— Aiio to the south. This makes each room ten feet square with a roof eight feet high in front and four feet at the back. No room is taken up in hallways or passageways but the doors entering the warm rooms open from the scratching sheds. Very light material is used in the con- struction of this house. Sills are four bv aso PRACTICAL BARN PLANS six inches, and two by fours are used for rafters. Common lumber is used for boarding, which is covered on the outside with building paper and the building paper is covered with thin matched sheathing. For the roof common sheathing boards are laid close together and covered with in this plan is very satisfactory. It shows a roosting platform with a row of nests underneath. For leghorns or similar fowls twelve inches square and seven or eight inches high is large enough for the nest boxes, but for brahmas or cochins two or three inches larger each wav are much tarred paper and the paper covered with better. To facilitate cleaning the drop- shingles. This makes a warm roof which ping board and nest boxes lift off from the is very essential to a poultry house. lower platform. The lower platform is : I / ,-i-J-_:.- ■f^ ,^ L--i --i- \ Each of the closed pens has a window that reaches down to the sill. This win- dow is wide enough and high enough to let in a great deal of sunshine, and this is what the chickens need in winter. All in- side surfaces are dressed to prevent lodge- ment of dust and hiding places for vermin. The whole bottom of the building is fdled in several inches deep with grout mortar. In the warm rooms the floor joists are em- bedded in the soft mortar and a matched floor laid on. A floor like this is dry and easily cleaned and it is impossible for rats to work their way up through it. There is no wooden floor in the scratching sheds. The grout fllling is supposed to be covered with straw a foot or so in depth. The hens will work in this straw even in the coldest days, but of course it is a good plan to have a liberal supply of straw in the warm room for amusement night and morning. For nest boxes the arrangement given hinged and may be dropped down or un- hooked and the whole thing carried out- doors. It is very important to have roost- ing poles, dropping board and nest boxes loose. A great deal of trouble has come from vermin getting into these places PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 251 without having facilities to eradicate them easily. Hens seldom form the egg eating habit if the nests are dark. This is whv the boxes open from the back under cover. The dropping board is not fastened to the nest boxes in any way. When gathering the eggs it may be lifted easily. A little two story poultry house that looks like a plaything is shown in plan (A153), but this house is all right as far as it goes. It is especially valuable for a boy who would like to start in the poultry bus- iness but cannot aflford a more expensive SMALL POULTRY HOUSE— Ai 53 so they may be moved about for cleaning or taken out at any time and put back as needed. It is not intended that any one will find it necessary to go inside this lit- tle house. The work is all done through the windows. The inner screens may be 'Sccr/ON SW£ £:L£ry/fT/OA/ house. This little house is four feet wide and twelve feet long with a scratching shed the full size on the ground under the floor. This space underneath is two feet high and the windows should extend well across the front side. A runway for the chickens to get up and down the stairs is made by sawing off one wide floor board and hinging it in such a way as to let one end drop to the ground. When this is raised up it fits the opening in the floor and it should be fitted with jambs to keep the cold from coming through the cracks. The nest boxes and roosts are loose rigged with cords and pulleys to hold them up and the outside windows may be held up by braces from the building. To gath- er the eggs, clean out the house, or for feeding, one of the windows is raised and the screen pulled back with a cord. The chickens may be driven down stairs or up- stairs during the operation. The screens may be of wire or cotton, or both. Cotton is the best because the window can be then left open and the chickens will get plenty of fresh air without a draught. On farms where considerable poultry is kept one of these little houses would be found useful occasionally to keep some breed separate. DUCK HOUSE— A98 A house designed for the housing of cedar posts set on blocks to prevent set- thoroughbred ducks is given in plan tling. The idea is to have a damp proof (A98). It is built up from the ground on house with the best possible ventilation. 252 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 253 The building is sixteen by thirty feet and contains one general room with a pas- sage, which is also a storeroom for feed, along one side and across one end. All the principal construction details are fully shown in the detail drawings. The house is built principally of two by fours as it is not very large and heavier timber is not necessary. The especial fea- tures are the filling of mineral wool in the partitions for warmth and a slatted ceiling with straw overhead for ventilation with- out drafts and without letting in an un- necessary amount of cold air. This style of a building is somewhat ex- pensive but it is very satisfactory when finished. It is usually considered that any kind of an old shed will do for ducks. In most cases any kind of an old shed is made to answer the purpose, but there is money in the better breeds and to get results it is necessary to keep even ducks with some idea of comfort. Some of the improved varieties bring fancy prices for eggs and young breeding stock, but like other thor- oughbred animals fancy ducks need a lit- tle more attention than little old scrubs that most of us are accustomed to. DOUBLE POULTRY HOUSE— Ai 54 A small double poultry house is shown in plan (A154). It is twenty-four feet long and sixteen feet wide, giving a space of six- teen by twelve feet to each compartment. It is very simple and it is also cheap and durable. It mav be built of matched stuff down to the ground at the back. Inside, the house is practically all one room, but a roost curtain may be hung with a roller to pull down at night or the cotton may be tacked on a hinged frame to let down at night, also one or more of /=>ouLr/fy HOO'S£ with the smooth side turned in, or it may be constructed of rough lumber. Of course matched stuff is very much the best as it leaves no harbor for vermin and no lodg- ment for dust. In either case the building is covered outside with tarred paper. The paper is started, in strips, from the eaves in front, carried over the peak and clear and the the windows may be left open spaces covered with cotton. Against the back wall is the droppings board with the roosts above it and the nest boxes underneath. All this furnish- ing is made removable so far as possible for easy cleaning. The apron board in front of the nest boxes lifts out in sections. This building is 68 feet long and 16 feet wide, built on a post foundation, which is enclosed with planking covered with galvanized wire cloth to a depth of about two feet below the ground, to check the tunneling of rats, etc. Almost every lover of poultry has his MODEL CHICKEN HOUSE— A173 own ideas as to how the model chicken house should be arranged and constructed, and every chicken house that is not thus constructed may meet with his severe crit- icism. We will, therefore, not lay stress on any one particular feature of this build- ing but will say that several different ideas ^OUTH ^IDEL HLnVAJ-ION COA/vSTT^UCV/O/V 07=" TL007R rr ooT« ZTA/Qj ■HOOM aJO. J ^TLCTIOrsI THHOUCH riOOM A/a 6 DESIGN NORTH j^ion: nLr?^AT/or^ or CMiCKEN Mousn: PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 255 have been used which may be explained as follows: Rooms Nos. i and 2 (see floor plan) are used together; room i being the scratch- ing room which is used in stormy and win- ter weather for exercise, and room No. 2 is the feed, nest and roost room. The roosts are placed above the nests which have a cover, or roof, pitched so the chickens cannot roost on the nest, but are compelled to get on the roost above. The nests are open in front, having a passage for the chickens, running the full length of each section. The nest sections are re- movable through doors opposite each sec- tion, so they can be easily cleaned and aired; they set on a rack which elevates them about twenty inches above the floor, so the chickens can walk below them where the feed troughs are located, as shown in the section through room No. 2. Room No. 3 is a feed room, 5 feet wide, which contains feed bins for grain, meal, etc. To the right (east) of this feed room are rooms 4, 5 and 6. In this scheme, the nest room, 4, is separated from the roost room, 6, one being to the west and the other to the east of the scratching rooms. This may have several advantages over the idea of room i and 2 where the chickens roost and lay in the same room, but it also has some disadvantages, one of which is that a larger building is required for the same number of fowls. The nests of room 4 are so constructed that each nest can be taken out separately, SCRATCHING SHED A poultry house with an open scratching shed is shown in plan (A151). The house is thirty-four feet long by twelve in width. Poultry men difi^er about the width of a house constructed in this manner. Some prefer twelve feet because it is easier to get the sunlight clear to the back, as these houses should always front the south. On the other hand men with considerable ex- perience prefer houses sixteen or even twenty feet in width because they can house more fowls for practically the same amount of money. or each entire section can be taken out through doors the same as in room 2. In place of the chicken being in view while on the nest, in room 4 the opening of the nests face the wall, having a dark passage for the chickens. By being out of view they are not frightened while the eggs are being gathered, which is done through a small round hand-hole through the back of the nest. This is covered by a small wooden shutter loosely screwed on over the hand-hole so it will always hang closed. Feed boxes similar to those in room 2, are located along the hallway. Rooms I and 5 have earth floors and boxes filled with dust, for dust baths. All other floors are constructed double, with two inches of mineral wool between them for warmth, as shown in the section. All side walls of the building have heavy building paper both inside and outside of the studding, and the space between is al- so filled with mineral wool. The space between the ceiling and roof is filled with straw during the winter months, and the ceiling boards are spaced half an inch apart to allow a free circu- lation of air through the ceiling and straw. This is brought about by having windows at each end of the building, which are con- trolled by cords. All windows on the north have storm sash for winter. Venti- lation shafts are built in the north wall, with side shutters for admitting fresh air and exhausting foul air in winter, when all windows are kept closed. POULTRY HOUSE— Ai 51 There are many ways of building an open scratching shed and poultry house, but this plan seems to contain about every- thing that is necessary. The door open- ing into the hen-house is just a frame cov- ered with cotton which admits both light and air to the roosts and nest boxes. The outside wire netting may be covered with cotton or not according to the climate and the ideas of the owner. The roofing is tarred paper and it starts at the highest point in front, turns over the upper corner at the back and goes clear 25b PRACTICAL BARN PLANS down to the ground. This makes a thor- oughly wind proof and damp proof house. It is a pecuHar thing about the damp- than anything else in the poultry line. It is easier to build a satisfactory stable for any other domestic animal than it is for eCS/^/fT/OA/ ness in poultry houses. It is a compara- tively simple question that has bothered poultry men more than anything else. y^noH Njuo/Ho jo nuij i/ootj Why a poultry house should gather damp- ness and have white frost on the inside when all the stables on the farm are com- paratively dry has bothered more men chickens unless we are satisfied with what is commonly termed a curtain front house. The phrase curtain front simply means that some of the openings are covered with thin cotton instead of glass. It seems to have solved the problem of how to make a chicken house light, airy and dry, but not all curtain front houses work alike. A great deal depends on the head room. A few hens have not body warmth enough to heat a great deal of space. You cannot have good ventilation without heat. The solution seems to be to build a comparatively small house with a low roof. Some poultry men build their curtain front houses as low as two feet at the back and only about six or seven feet high in front. An A shaped poultry house is given in plan (A152). This is the cheapest way to build a poultry house. You don't have to AN A-SHAPED POULTRY HOUSE— Ai 52 It is divided lengthwise with a curtain partition. This curtain is in four foot sec- tions and it rolls up on heavy window 3£CnoA/ J/D£ CL £ t^/7r/OA/ build a roof or if you build a roof you don't have to build sides. You can do either way you choose. shade rollers, so that it may be pulled down cold nights to make a warm roosting place. The material of the curtain is cheap PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 257 cotton costing three or four cents per yard. The sections are divided by two by four posts reaching from the floor to the ridge pole and made flush on the curtain side. You attach the roller to the ridge pole so the curtain rolls up on the inside of the roller which brings it close to the wood- work. The house shown in the plan is eight feet wide and sixteen feet long. One end of this building is supposed to front the south. There is a small door in this end for the chickens to go in and out and the window is as big as possible. The entrance door is at the side and it should be near the south end. It is bad plan to have doors, windows or any openings in the north end or north side of a poultry house. SMALL CHICKEN HOUSE— Ai 19 A very neat little chicken house is shown the dropping board, is loose and may be in plan (A119). In size it is only 7x16 easily taken out through the door for feet but it makes comfortable quarters for cleaning. The roosts also are loose and 15 or 20 hens. It is set on posts a foot may be removed easily. DffOP n n or two frorri the ground to be out of the way of rats. The floor is made warm by having it double boarded with a thickness of build- ing paper between. The large windows of course face the south and the dust boxes are placed immediately in front of them because that is the way biddy likes to take a dust bath. She wants it directly in the sunlight if possible. It is not necessary or desirable to go into a little house like this very often. It is so small that the presence of an attendant frightens the hens and causes a disagree- able commotion. B}' proper management, however, they can usually be let out into the yard when the presence of an attend- ant in the house becomes necessary. The roosts are placed over the nest boxes and the entrance to the nest boxes is in the rear. The nest box cover, which also is /^/FOA/r £-/,eKyfr/o/v This is just the kind of a house to start a boy in the poultry business. Boys take more interest in a small poultry house than they do in a house full size. A little house like this is helped out ver}^ much by having a good yard in which con- siderable green stuff may be grown for the fowls to pick at. By planting a little grain and a variety of vegetables, the poultrv will pick up a good deal of feed and the fowls will be more healthv because of it. 258 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS ELEVATED CHICKEN HOUSE— Ai 65 This plan elevates the poultry house about fourteen inches above the ground for the purpose of preventing rats from manure is used considerable heat may be generated. As the building is not very heavy the making nests under the floor. It is high enough so that cats and dogs can have free access underneath and this space also ofTers a shady protection for fowls in the sills are made of two pieces of two by six, one laid flat on the supporting cedar posts and the other turned edgewise as shown in the drawing. summer time. At the approach of cold The south side of the building is only weather in the fall this space is boarded four feet high above the floor and the win- up and manure is banked against the dows are placed well down. This has the boarding to keep out the cold. If horse advantage in the winter time of letting the PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 259 sun shine on the floor where the chickens can make the best use of it. The north wall is six feet high above the floor and this wall is made tight to keep boards on the lower side of the ceiling joists about two inches apart. In winter the space above this slatted floor is filled in with straw for the purpose of having out the cold. A partition three and one- half feet from the north side of the house forms an alley and the nests are placed against this partition so the eggs may be gathered without going into the henhouse proper. The nest boxes are placed high enough above the floor so the fowls may use the space under them for scratching. The nest boxes are easily removed for cleaning and they are covered with a steep slanting roof to prevent the hens from roosting on them. The ceiling in this house is an important feature. It is made by nailing one by six good ventilation without creating a draft. In the summer time the straw is removed and the place thoroughly cleaned. For further ventilation there is a vent stack in each end of the building which comes down to within a few inches of the floor. These ventilators pasc out through the roof and extend above the highest point and are capped to keep out the rain. There is also a slide near the bottom to regulate the amount of air. If heavy fowls are kept in this house good ladders should be provided to help them up and down or they may get bumble foot. Ice Houses and Cold Storage ICE FOR COLD STORAGE— A223 Blue Prints Will Cost, $15.00 ICE is still the most economical cooling medium for small refrigerators. Small automatic ice machines are in use but more or less expert supervision is neces- sary to keep them in working order. The advantages of direct ice cooling are sim- plicity and comparative economy, but the average refrigerator cooled by ice will hardlv give a temperature below 45 or 40 degrees F and it has the disadvantage that the air is too damp for best results. Sen- sitive products like butter, milk and eggs will not keep well in a moist atmosphere. To meet the difficulties between a large extensive refrigerator plant and the ordi- nary ice cooled refrigerator Madison Cooper has invented and designed what he calls the "Gravity Brine System" which will produce a temperature as low as 14 degrees F. The system is very simple and may be applied to a very small plant or one of considerable dimensions. The diagram shows the principle upon which it works. In the small plant there is an insulated box or tank A on the floor above the cooling room. In this box is a coil of pipe which reaches down below into and coiled in the cold room B. This pipe coil is fdled with a brine solution of chlo- ride of calcium. The tank A is then fdled with a mixture of crushed or broken icet and coarse salt which cools the brine. .\s cold brine is heavier than warm brine it settles in the i)ipcs and the warmer brine from its pi below rises in the other pipes to take ace. This keeps up a constant circu- PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 261 lation whereby the pipe in the lower room is kept cold and the degree of cold is reg- ulated by the size of the cold storage room, the area of pipe surface and the amount of ■. to 40 degrees above zero. Mr. Cooper states that a temperature as low as six de- grees has been obtained. These temperatures of course are suf- D salt used with the broken or crushed ice. The arrows show the direction in which circulation flows. More or less pipe is used in proportion to the amount of cubic space to be cooled and the temperature main- tained. ficiently low for all cold storage and freez- ing purposes in common use. In fact, thir- ty to thirty-three degrees is about as low as is required for ordinary cold storage. . It is well known that ice forms on cold storage pipes when the temperature is be- ..^o- oX .a y -c>" Ice and salt will produce a temperature below zero, so the circulating brine may be easily cooled to five or ten degrees F, which, when the pipes are properly pro- portioned will produce a temperature in a good, well built storage room of from 10 <3 ©-<=><. ^3:2-e=>' low the freezing point and the collection of ice not only interferes with the proper cooling process, but it adds dampness and this is to be avoided as far as possible. Mr. Cooper uses a process which he has pat- ented called the chloride of calcium pro- 262 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS cess for preventing frost on refrigerating surfaces and for purifying and drying the air of cold storage rooms. This process is extremely simple and consists simply of supporting a quantity of chloride of cal- cium in the lump form in perforated troughs or gutters above the cooling pipes of the Gravity Brine System in the cold storage room to absorb the moisture and carry it away. The whole cooling system apparently is very simple and it looks as though any careful person of ordinary intelligence without special mechanical skill could look after it and keep it in good condition. This cooling system is in use in different parts of the country for the cold storage of but- ter, cheese, fruits, eggs, dressed poultry, meats and for the manufacture and keep- ing of ice cream. Some of the plants have different rooms maintained at dififerent temperatures. Some have fans for ventilating purposes and some are fitted with ice crushing ma- chines, power elevators, electric lights, etc. It seems that the system may be em- ployed to advantage for very small plants or for very large ones and that the results are equally satisfactory. Farming communities within easy reach of railway stations should be supplied with a cold storage plant, and this plant should be under the management of a committee of farmers. Then it would not be abso- lutely necessary to ship perishable prod- ucts when the market was unfavorable. Cold storage, however, is a business proposition and to be successful it must be managed on business principles. The cuts besides illustrating the prin- ciple of cold storage show how a practical cold storage warehouse may be built. The ice house is indicated at the left with an ice elevator to hoist the ice into the build- ing from the cars. There is a plaform which connects the two buildings so the ice may be conveniently transferred to the upper part of the cold storage ware- house where it is broken up by machinery, mixed with salt and packed in the coils. CHEAP ICE HOUSE— A222 A very cheap house will keep ice. All you really need is a roof to keep the rain ofif and boarding at the sides to hold the sawdust in place. If you put up a cube of ice in the winter time ten feet in diameter and keep it covered with a foot of sawdust all around you will have ice for farm use all next summer. This is not saying that a good, well-built ice house is unnec- essary. The idea is that no farmer need do without ice because he cannot afiford an expensive ice house. The principle of keeping ice depends in the first place on getting quantity enough together to maintain a low temperature. then the drainage must be sufficient to car- ry away the water as the ice melts and drips. In the third place you must keep the air away from it which may be done by keeping wet sawdust continually close around the ice. You can set up four poles, nail rough boards on the inside, leaving a foot space all around the ice and fill this space with sawdust. Then if you have a roof over it that will turn the rain you can have ice in hot weather, but such a building would be an eye-sore on the farm and a disgrace to the owner. Because you build cheap you need not build something you will be ashamed of afterwards. This little ice house may be built very easily and cheaply and it will look right when finished and prove very satisfactory. There is a light framework of two by fours boarded on the outside by drop siding. The house is twelve feet square and is twelve feet high to the plates. The rafters are tied together by collar beams placed well up to leave plenty of head room. You will need head room in putting in the top courses at filling time. You can board up the inside or not; it makes but little difference. It is better to put the house in the shade of a large tree, or on the north side of a build- ing, but drainage is more important than i PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 263 shade. If the drainage is not good nat- urally, put in tiling. Fill above the tiling with cinders and put a foot of sawdust on top of the cinders. Don't use straw if you can help it because it rots. Pine sawdust is the best if you can get it. Fill the house in January or February. the ice a foot or two in depth on top. Then as the warm weather comes on in spring climb in on top of the sawdust about once a week just to see that there are no cracks 'k — /:2-0 JJ /=*^^/V /7/Ki? £rA^/^/77'/0/V 0/=- /C^ //OC/^^ Throw water over the ice cold nights so it will all freeze solid together, then in March put on the sawdust, filling in between the ice and the sides of the house and cover made by settling that will let in the air to melt the ice. Your summer supply may depend on packing the sawdust a few times during March and April. LARGER ICE HOUSE— A224 Where a large number of cows are kept and a large quantity of ice is needed in the dairy every day in summer it will pay to put considerable expense on the ice house. The cooler and better the house the more economically you can keep ice. One build- er even recommended one air space after another up to seven separate air spaces in order to prevent heat from striking through to warm the interior of the house. The ice house should be nearly square because the ice keeps better when it is in one compact mass. In starting to build as good an ice house as this one it pays to put quite a bit of work on the foundation. Ice melts in the best houses and you must take care of the drip. This plan provides for a course of tiling all around the outer wall and a course of cross tiling every four feet, the cross tiles connecting with the outside tile and all empty in the one outlet through a trap at the lower corner. No earth is put back into the excavation, but the tiles are covered with coarse cin- ders, cinders that have been raked over and only the hard burned parts used. If the cinders are too fine for a rake, use a screen, but manage some way to keep the ashes out. Sometimes the ashes pack down and hold water like cement. a64 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS The house is sixteen by twenty feet and the wall is four inches larger each way. The sills are made of two by eight double and are laid flatways on the wall in soft cement. The wall is also smooth up to the sill on the inside with cement neatly troweled around. Two by four studding is set flush with the inside of the sill. Building paper is put ^■e-)^ i< 1^ on the outside of these and another set of two by four studding set against them out- side of the paper. In this way a wall eight inches thick is made with paper partition in the center. The wall is then finished with paper and siding outside and with paper and siding inside, put on as carefully as possible and made as nearly air tight as good material and good workmanship can make it. The paper and boarding is lapped over on the sill at the bottom and on the plate at the top so that the sides of the building are completely insulated from the sill to the ceiling. "The ceiling is made with two by six joists and matched boarding laid with paper like a floor on top and another matched boarding nailed like a ceiling with paper on the under side, the paper being tacked to the joists both above and below. Paper also is used on the rough boards under the shingles and a good ven- tilator is provided to keep the air moving in the attic. Because of the ceiling it is more work ^ <::'-'<:> 7^/:,^/^ to put in the ice when you get near to the top, but an ice room built in this way is a refrigerator in itself and it will save ice enough to pay for a little inconvenience at time of filling. The doors fasten in front like refrigerator doors. They are built like the sides of the house with air spaces and are made to fit tight in the jambs. All doors and door frames must be made of kiln dry material and filled to resist mois- ture. There is no floor, the sawdust just rests on the cinders, and the ice rests on the sawdust which should be at least a foot deep on top of the cinders. TWO HUNDRED TON ICE HOUSE— A228 An ice house to hold two hundred tons of ice is given in this ])lan. This ice house was built on a large dairy farm near a good sized village. Some seasons the farmer sells considerable ice to the village at paying prices. The building is twenty feet wide by thirty feet long and sixteen feet high to the eaves. When completely filled it would hold about two hundred and twen- tv-five tons. The exterior is finished with drop sid- ing and a stained shingle roof. Next to the siding is a layer of building paper, in- side of this and nailed to the outside row of two by four studding is matched ceiling of good quality. Then comes a dead air space four inches thick. Next is a layer of hair felt seven-eighths of an inch thick nailed to the inner edges of the four-inch studding; inside the hair felt is another matched ceiling of narrow pine sheathing, I o o b i 5 366 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS then another row of two by four studding hned on the inside again with another boarding of matched pine sheathing, then an inch of block mineral wool, and this is protectedonthe insidewith anotherboard- ing of matched soft pine sheathing nailed to furring strips. All this work is very carefully done to prevent so far as possible the slightest air connection between the different spaces. It is recognized that a dead air space is the best possible non- conductor of heat or cold. There are six doors and they are just as carefully made as the siding. The de- tail drawing shows how they are fitted. Inside of the doors the opening is further closed and sealed by a double thickness of loose inch boards, which fit into the grooves and are laid to break joints. These boards are put in place as the filling proceeds and are taken out one .it a time as the ice lowers in €ummer. The ceiling over the ice is just as care- fully constructed as other parts of the building and the space over the ceiling is kept cool by a ventilator in each gable end and another ventilator in the roof. All these details are very important but they are not more important than the cov ering for the ice, which should be of saw dust if possible to get it. An interesting feature of this house is the simple elevator to be used in filling. It is a double gig elevator so arranged that one gig goes up as the horse walks in one direction, and as the horse walks in the other direction the first gig lowers and the second one goes up. Perhaps this is the quickest arrangement made for the purpose, considering its simplicity. REFRIGERATOR ICE HOUSE— A118 An ice house with a cold storage room is shown in plan (A118). The walls are built hollow with paper inside and out. In the cold storage department there are several thicknesses of paper in the in- possibility of doing it. There is sure to be a crack somewhere to let the air through, but this plan probably comes as near to it as is necessary. When an ice house is made as tight as \\ 1 h r D — 1 y^/roA/r £ri.£:y/jr/o/\/ sccr/oA/ ner wall to make the dead air space as this it is necessary to let the top air out. tight as possible. If you have ever under- For this reason a ventilator is built in the taken to make an absolutely dead air space roof to encourage a circulation of air be- you understand the difficulty, or the im- tween the upper ceiling and the shingles. PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 26 In this arrangement the cold storage de- partment is supplied with ice as needed by putting in a quantity, say once a week. borhood and it will pay to read up on cold storage before you start in. If it is made just right it will be a great comfort and PIBNS OF /c/: f/OUSC The construction of an ice house like this requires good workmanship. You will need the best mechanic in the neigh- satisfaction, but if it is not made right it will cause a great deal of trouble and he a continuous annoyance. Miscellaneous Farm Buildings IMPLEMENT SHED— Ai 48 AN implement shed sixteen feet wide by forty-eight feet long is given in plan (A 148). This shed really is built in six- teen foot sections and may be carried to any length, but this size will hold the im- plements and machinery on an ordinary farm and leave room at one end for a work bench and repair shop. The front is all doors so that any part casionally invite the women to help get a grain drill out from behind harrows, plows, cultivators and other machinery. One reason why farm machinery is neg- lected is because farmers have no place to keep it. It is not repaired when it should be for the same reason. It is quite a job to do a simple piece of repair work if you haven't the tools or the room in which to £:lcj^/it/oa of the shed may be opened and any imple- ment removed without the work of getting it past some of the others. We have all had experience in crowded quarters for farm machinery. We have been obliged to call all the men together and oc- do it, but anybody can clean up machinery and oil or paint it if they have a comfort- able place to work and the tools to work with. The front part of this shed is built high- er than the back part in order to leave 368 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 269 head room. If you want to get in with a binder with the reel on, or to house a threshing machine or traction engine you need about ten feet to the top of the doors, in the detail drawing are intended for the end bents only. In the end of the shed most convenient a good solid bench should be rigged up rooL 3//£D but you don't need so much height to the back end. The doors in this plan are ten feet high and the cross girts are the same height because it is sometimes necessary to move the machines lengthwise of the shed and the same head room is then need- ed. A truss is formed at each bent with the rafters to prevent the building from spreading. The two by four nailers shown and fitted with a good vise. At the back of this bench there should be a long low window similar to those used in black- smith shops all over the country. The bench should be heavy, solid and at least three feet wide. There should be a good floor especially in the bench end of the building and it is a good plan to put up a chimnev and have a stove there. OPEN VEHICLE SHED— A221 A shelter for vehicles in this case is provided by a row of posts covered by a protecting roof, braced as shown in the drawings. It is necessary to brace a building of this kind and as bracing near the ground would be very much in the way this form of truss work has been adopted. Eight by eight wooden posts are set in a double row sixteen feet apart both ways, thus forming a series of bays sixteen feet square. The wooden posts are set in con- crete abutments twenty inches square and four feet high set in the ground from three and one-half to four feet according to the nature of the sfround. These abutments are made by filling the holes, which are dug the exact size, with concrete tamped in in the usual way, but the tops are made uniform and bev- eled as shown by the use of a box form hinged at one corner and fastened with a hasp and staple at the corner diagonally opposite. The holes are filled in about a foot deep with concrete, then the wooden posts are set up carefully and plumbed and stay- lathed to keep them in position. Then the concrete is filled in around them and the abutments carried a foot or so above ground to form a hub guard. The drawing shows a shed with five 270 PRACTICAL BARN PLANS of these sixteen foot compartments, but fewer can be used if a smaller shed is required, and the building would look al- right when finished. The entrance at the ends is twelve feet high, which will permit driving in with a load of hay or sheaves. A shed built like this would work well as a stock shelter. PRACTICAL BARN PLANS a^i SMALL WAGON SHED— A108 A wagon shed twenty feet wide and forty feet long like the one in the plan illustrated, is a useful building on every farm. One thing is important about a wagon shed, and that is to have the en- trance wide enough to get things in and out easily and quickly. This double door Implement sheds like all other buildings should be designed for what is to be re- quired of them. An implement shed is a necessity on every farm, but some farmers want to house threshing machines and traction engines, while others want a shed to hold mowers, plows, cultivators, a 1 1 i — 1 in 1 ^' '4/Cftf/»f ^osr-t — r /=>l,/7A/ /7A/0 ^£Cr/OA/ OF //OG /yoaS£' lengthwise of the building and the floor boards run crosswise and slant back for easy cleaning. A space is left between the floor boards and the boarding at the draft on the floor is a very bad thing for hogs. This little hog house don't run in- to very much money but it is a very use- ful, practical affair. HOG HOUSE— Aiog In building a hog house it is necessary sirable to select out one or two from cer- to consider convenience in getting the tain pens. That is the time when the al- hogs in and out, to provide means for load- ley door will be appreciated. Another ^rcr/OA/ OF HOC //ocs^r mg them into wagons and a place for heat- ing water and to do the work of killing. This plan offers an opportunity to back a wagon up to the rear door for loading and a room in the front end away from the pens is arranged for a feed room and slaughter house. Provision is made for removing hogs from one pen to another by having cleats in the alley for holding sliding doors. Hogs thrive better when animals of the same size are penned together. Some grow faster than others and it is sometimes de- It jr^J^- ^ riOO/? /=>£/? A/ OF //OG //0(/S£ PRACTICAL BARN PLANS 273 good thing about this hog house is the swinging front of the pens which swings back over the trough and prevents inter- ference when putting in the feed. The partitions next to the feed room run to the ceiling but the partitions between the pens are only four feet high. There is no cornice to the roof. The openings above the plates between the rafters are left for ventilation. This hog house will accommodate about forty hogs. From six to eight in a pen are enough, if more are housed together they pile up and smother each other. HOG HOUSE AND CORN CRIB— A140 Hogs and corn may both be kept in the in the usual way with an alley between, same house economically by building a The floor above to hold the corn slants house like the one shown in plan (A140). each way from the center. There is about I^a/s^-zv ^ ^. I I lJ I I L J L J \Xf\i^