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Radford's
Practical Barn Plans
Being a Complete
Collection of Practical
Economical and Com-
mon-Sense Plans of
Barns, Out Buildings
and Stock Sheds :: :: ::
By WILLIAM A. RADFORD
Editor-in-Chief of the "American Carpenter and Builder "
and the " Cement World" President of "The Radford
Architectural Co.f Author of "The Steel Square
and Its Uses" and "Practical Carpentry" and
the Best Authority in the Country on all Mat-
ters Pertaining to the Building Industry
ivadford /Vrchitectural (company
CHICAGO, ILL.
Copyrighted, 1907,
BV
William A. Radford, Chicago
PREFACE
Better farming methods require better
buildings, not necessarily expensive ones,
but buildings that are well planned and
properly adapted to the work for which
they are intended. A farm building should
be first a property saver, second a labor
saver. Farm buildings may be considered
in a sense as a necessary expense, but on
the other hand they should be considered
in the light of an investment.
A farm barn is the farmer's factory. It
is a building in which he converts raw ma-
terials into manufactured products. In a
dairy stable he takes cheap feeds and
manufacturers them into expensive cream
and butter. In feeding stables and hog
pens he manufacturers high priced breed-
ing stock as well as good beef, mutton and
pork out of grain and roughage.
It makes a great difference in the profits
whether this barn factory is so construc-
ted that the animals may be made com-
fortable enough to make the best possible
use of the feeds given them. Profits are
also seriously affected by the labor prob-
lem. Barns and stables may be so ar-
ranged as to conserve labor or to waste
labor.
The object of this book is to present a
great many up-to-date ideas in arranging
and building in such a way as to enable
farmers to take advantage of the exper-
ience of others. The author does not
claim credit for the different plans and ar-
rangements offered. He has gathered
them from successful barn builders and
architects in many different states and in
Canada.
In selecting a plan the farmer himself
must be the judge of what he needs. The
kind of farm building best adapted to one
part of the country is not suitable for an-
other. Two farms adjoining need differ-
ent buildings because the kind of farming
differs with individuals. One farmer
makes a great mistake by blindly copying
what another farmer uses to advantage.
Every building requires careful study to
fit it carefully into the environments of
the farm and the peculiarities of the man.
It is not the aim or intention of this book
to induce farmers to put unnecessary
money in buildings. So far as possible
utility has been combined with economy
in construction. The profits in farming
operations for the most part are gathered
in a retail way. In this respect a farmer's
business is different from commercial
manufacturing concerns because the out-
put cannot be multiplied indefinitely.
There is a limit to the production of any
kind of farm product; hence the necessity
of economy in building. At the same time
it pays to build well.
It will be noticed that in most cases
there are plans of cheap structures, med-
ium priced buildings and others that are
thoroughly good. It does not follow that
the more expensive buildings are better
for the purpose than some of the cheaper
ones. They are all well adapted to the
uses for which they are intended. The
cheaper ones will answer the purpose, but
at the same time the better ones will prove
more lasting and satisfactory if the farmer
has the necessary means at hand to con-
struct them. There is great satisfaction
in having good buildings if the owner se-
cures what he wants and gets the worth
of his money.
In permanent structures the use of con-
crete is recommended wherever practic-
PREFACE
able because it is comparatively cheap and
because it is lasting. The price of lumber
has almost doubled in ten years, while ce-
ment is better and cheaper than ever be-
fore. A cement floor properly laid down
is there for all time and cement walls
harden with age until they become better
than stone.
In building, by all means, secure the
services of the best mechanics within
reach. Their wages are a little higher but
they seldom spoil material and the job is
almost always more satisfactory in the
end.
Judgment is necessary in buying mater-
ials; generally speaking the best is the
cheapest, but it often happens that a good
second grade answers the purpose just as
well while afifecting considerable saving
in cash.
Farmers may save a great deal by get-
ting ready weeks, or months, before build-
ing. Putting up even a small building
runs into a great deal of work. Often the
time required is more than twice as much
as the estimates. By having everything
on the ground confusion is avoided as well
as the unnecessary expense of getting
things together in a great hurry, often at
an inconvenient season.
WILLIAM A. RADFORD,
Chicago, 111.
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL BARN PLANS
Small Barn with Cement Floor — A 1 1 2
if so desired, three or four inches thick,
made of good stiff clay wet down and
tamped level over the cement. Some horse-
men prefer a cement bottom with a foot
This barn is twenty-two feet wide by
thirty-four feet long and has a cement
floor cushioned with cinders the whole
size of the building, but the standing stalls
have a plank floor running lengthwise of
the stall over the cement. These planks
West Epid
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
the plank, back of this the planks have
free ends which facilitate drainage back to
the gutter and makes it easy to remove the
floor if the planks should split or wear out.
The box stall may have an earth floor.
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or two of straw ; either way is good enough
if the horses have the right kind of care.
The oat bin is in the hay loft and the
corn bin may be put there too if the space
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
on the carriage room floor is needed. By
having tlie feed overliead and chutes for
the different kinds of feed to the floor be-
low, feeding is made easy.
Sliding doors usually are preferred for
a horse barn, and a half door for ventila-
tion is a good thing. A horse will stand
for hours with his head out of such a door
with evident satisfaction.
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Open Front Poultry House — A no
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
struction of this house. Sills are four by
six inches, and two by fours are used for
rafters. Common lumber is used for
boarding, which is covered on the outside
a n
breed. The house is forty feet long and
ten feet wide, divided into two compart-
ments. Each compartment has a warm
room and a scratching shed which is open
to the south. This makes each room ten
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
tarred paper and the paper covered with
feci 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-
shingles. This makes a warm roof which
is very essential in a poultry house.
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
BARN PLANS
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 filled
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 filling 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
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 \vay are much
better. To facilitate cleaning the drop-
ping board and nest boxes lift oflf from the
lower platform. The lower platform is
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
without having facilities to eradicate them
easily.
Hens seldom form the egg eating habit
if the nests are dark. This is why 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.
Convenient Horse Barn — A133
Men who keep good horses will appre-
ciate this plan. The arrangement of the
€talls is convenient and there is a good
carriage room in which to keep vehicles
away from the stable part and out of the
dust. Every farmer who takes pride in
his horses likes to have a nice rig to drive,
and it is impossible to have it without con-
veniences for keeping it clean. With a
good carriage room and a good harness
room there is no excuse for dirty buggies
or an unsightly harness.
A feature of this barn that should at
tract especial attention is the tool room.
It is nine by ten feet in a front corner of
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RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
the building with two good windows for is placed right because it may be shut off
light. There is a general work bench with with two doors from the stable part, still
a vise on one end and there are boxes to it is not so far away as to make feeding
hold tools and supplies on the dark side of inconvenient.
the room. The granary will be large There is room overhead for a good deal
enough or not according to the other of hav and straw. The hav carrier will
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buildings on the farm. Where there is a bring the stuff from the back end pretty
large grain barn for threshing a smaller well through to the front,
granary in the horse barn seems to answer It would probably be advisable to put a
every purpose. The granary in this plan cement floor in this building
BARN PLANS
Plan of an Ice House — A 1 1 8
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
For this reason a ventilator is built in the
roof to encourage a circulation of air be-
tween the upper ceiling and the shingles.
In this arrangement the cold storage de-
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are several thicknesses of paper in the in-
ner wall to make the dead air space as
tight as possible. If you have ever under-
taken to make an absolutely dead air space
vou understand the difficultv, or the im-
partment is supplied with ice as needed
by putting in a quantity, say once a week.
The construction of an ice house like
this requires good workmanship. You
will need the best mechanic in the neigh-
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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
this it is necessary to let the top air out.
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
satisfaction, but if it is not made right it
will cause a great deal of trouble and be a
continuous annovance.
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
Housing of Dairy Cows — Aioo
The careful housing of dairy cows is re- milk until he satisfies the inspector that
ceiving careful, systematic consideration
as never before. Investigations have been
conducted by men who are thoroughly
conversant with the subject from a prac-
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-
tical as well as scientific standpoint. prising as it does, all grades of producers
Government milk inspectors, backed by from the most progressive farmer down
public opinion, have established a thor- the line of small dairymen to the ignorant
ough system of inspection. City milk sup- huckster. Cleanliness is required by in-
ply is now traced to its source, the cows spectors first, last and all the time; thus.
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examined thoroughly for condition and making the right start, for cleanliness,
liealth and the stable for cleanliness. If leads to many virtues. A man who is par-
incompetency or indiflference has led the ticular about all utensils, his wagon,
dairyman to disobey the state sanitary re- stable, cattle and himself, will not tolerate
quirements he is not permitted to ship his a poor stable or an unhcalthv cow\ He
BARN PLANS
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
ability to grow or fatten. Too frequently
cattle thus housed were attacked by bov-
ine disease germs, which were materially
assisted in their work of destruction by
conditions so expensively though uninten-
tionally provided. Stockmen thought the
trouble was caused bv too great a change
C/fO-53
our best farmers and stockmen. Bank
barns were the outgrowth of a desire to
provide comfortable stables that were both
warmer and better. The convenience 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, lusterless hair, hot noses
and hot, feverish breath, with fretful quar-
relsome actions together with their in-
in temperature by allowing the cattle to
go out for an airing or for water each day;
to remedy this, water buckets were added
to the stable outfit and the stock confined
in an abominable atmosphere for weeks at
a time.
Atmospheric conditions afifect animals
dififerently. The heavy br<^eds of beef cat-
tle are usually phlegmatic in disposition,
paying little attention to ordinary disturb-
ances; these sufifered less in consequence,
though it was noticed that they did not
benefit from the quantity and quality of
feed as they should. Milch cows of a
highly nervous organization are more sus-
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
ceptible to incipient diseases caused by ob-
jectionable 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
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-
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 accom-
panying plans. This 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-
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
mav 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
pasture, however, receives less considera-
tion than it did a few years ago. North
in which soiling crops are grown. The
of parallel 42 there is an average of only
six weeks of good pasture. Summer
draughts sandwiched in between late
spring and 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 at least
a quarter of an acre for each cow is neces-
sary, but the fields may be more profitably
employed in raising cultivated crops. The
question of drainage is a very important
BARN PLANS
13
one. If the soil is naturally dry and slopes
sufficient to carry off rain water no elab-
orate system 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
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this way of managing is cheaper as well
as better than the old fashioned way of
piling in manure to be hauled away at
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
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 around 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-
crete wall is cheaper and better. The ma-
terials may be put together on the ground
and dumped into the trenches with im-
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
complete and the whole thing will be in
one piece.
The Floor
After the walls are finished the grading
for the floor comes 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-
14
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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 remembered 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 bttt
eight feet looks better if the stable is long
and where there are a good many cows to-
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 plan 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 into 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
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 and 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 the build-
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 occasionally to clear
out the dust. A window is placed in each
gable for the purpose of causing suflicient
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
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-'
BARN PLANS
15
ing is low a light roof is sufficient. Two
by four rafters are heavy enough if well
supported by cross collar beams.
The Silo
In this plan the silos are p'aced at the
end of the stable. If the stable is long how-
ever it is better to put the silo in the mid-
dle. It will save steps at feeding time. It
is better to have two small silos than one
large one. From twelve to sixteen feet
in diameter is big enough for any silo. The
surface may then be fed ofif 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 entirelv of cement and
the room has a light 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 utensil? and a porcelain
lined sink for washing dishes. Outside of
the milk room is a rack to hold the cans
where they are turned up side 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 cheapes.t 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 Pennsvlvania 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 difficult 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 sufifer, 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 are 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 stuflf, 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 fa'-mer 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
necessarv to understand all the little de-
i6
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
tails and see that they are properly worked
out. 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 mav 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.
Horse and Cattle Barn — An^
A medium sized barn to accommodate fifteen feet wide, is left for general pur-
eight cows and six horses is given in plan poses. It answers for a feed room, storage
(A115). The size on the ground is thirty for a wagon or two and general barn pur-
two by forty-four, which is not very large poses. The second floor covers the whole
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for a farm barn, but it is not intended to building with a couple of hay chutes to let
be a large one. The first floor is divided down feed and straw to the horses and cat-
into three parts; the horses occupy one, tie. It hardly pays to work a horse fork
the cows another and the middle section, in a barn of this size. The stuff may be
BARN PLANS
17
cT
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I I
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partition. This curtain is in four foot sec-
tions and it rolls up on heavy window
shade rollers, so that it may be pulled
down cold nights to make a warm roosting
place. The material of the curtain is cheap
cotton costing three or four cents per yard.
The sections are divided by two by four
posts reaching from the floor to the ridge
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 a bad plan to have doors,
windows or any openings in the north end
or north side of a poultry house.
BARN PLANS
19
A Dairy Bank Barn — A125
An old fashioned dairy barn is shown One good feature about this stable is
in plan (A125). There are a good many the ventilation. To have good air in a cow
such barns still in use in Wisconsin. Those stable it is absolutely necessar}'^ to have a
using them say they are satisfactory under system of ventilation. You can stable four
certain conditions. or five cows together and depend on
£:nd ^^ct/o/v
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
BARN PLANS
21
chance openings to provide them with oxy-
gen, but you cannot depend on Providence
to keep your cattle alive in a large stable
unless you assist a little bit.
A good many dairy men prefer to have
the cows face outward. This is a matter
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
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
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-
head in a barn like this, and it is a conven-
ient barn to do the work in except in the
matter of feeding the cows. It takes more
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
the incline may be had easily to drive in
on the main floor. The horse fork is
worked from the center.
A Round Corn Crib— A 142
So far as the size is concerned there is
more room in a round corn crib than in
any other shape made with the same
amount of material. The building is eas-
ily constructed because it is all plain
straight work and it is rat proof because
it is set up two feet from the ground on
cement posts.
The posts are made by digging holes in
the ground three and one-half feet deep
.and about eight inches in diameter.
Lengths of eight inch pipe made of galvan-
ized iron are used to carry the cement two
feet above the ground. Before commenc-
ing it is necessary to strike a common level
at the surface of the ground so that when
the pipes are all set up the tops of them
will be the same height. The post above
the ground and the post underground
should all be made at the same time so
that the cement will unite into one solid
post.
III II III
\s}:cr/o/v --- £L£K/9t/oaj
Of-
/fO(/A/a CO/TA/ C/f/S
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
The floor plan shows the way the joists
are laid and the circles represent the girts
to which the 1x4 upright pieces are nailed.
As the crib is sixteen feet in diameter it
is necessary to have a ventilator in the
middle. Ordinarily it is not advisable to
have a body of corn more than six or seven
feet in diameter. By making the inner
circle three feet we have six and one half
feet between the inner strips and the outer
strips and as there is no floor over the
joists in the center the air can pass up
through the three foot ventilator easily.
The round girts may be made in two
ways, either by using thin stuflf and nail-
ing one layer upon the other, breaking
joints, or they may be ripped out of two
inch planks. If ripped out of planks a
single saw-cut through each piece of plank
will shape the sections, cut as shown in the
diagram. Use two inch plank ten inches
wide cut to four foot lengths. Make seg-
ments enough to build up all the girts nec-
essary by ripping the short planks length-
wise through the middle, then rip again on
the curved line. The finished girts are about
4x43<4 inches. There is verv little waste.
The roof is supported by a similar girt and
this upper girt or plate is supported by ex-
tending some of the one by four pieces
above the others as shown in the drawing.
These extension strips may be doubled
or two by fours used at these places. The
y- o-
£^rr/7/Ls Of /foa/v/p co/ta/ c/^/s
crib is twelve feet high to the plate. An
air space is left all around and this air
space is big enough to shovel corn
or
through. Of course the corn is put in at
the door and at the opposite window until
the crib is pretty well filled.
The roof itself is a very simple affair.
It is supported by the plate and the ven-
BARN PLANS
23
tilator shaft. The roof boards are 12 feet
long and cut 1 1 inches at the wide end and
I inch at the upper end or narrow end.
These boards are nailed in place and the
cracks battened. The center is easily filled
in with sheet of galvanized iron having a
cut reaching from one edge to the center.
Such a roof if kept painted will last a long
time. It is very light, cheap and easily
made.
A Small Barn with Stable — A117
A small barn with stable underneath is
shown in plan (A117). The barn is thirty-
two by thirty-six feet and contains stab-
ling for eleven horses with convenient feed
room in the basement.
The hay chute passes straight down
from the loft to the feed room below and
a corn chute is built diagonally across un-
der the driveway floor to reach the feed
room. The reason for this is that all feed
rooms should be shut off from the stabling
/^//7Jr /^LOCf? /=^/JfJ
r^OO/^ fl/iN Of HORSC 3T/iBli:
24
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
part with a good door. Most of us have
had experiences with horses getting loose
at night and eating more grain than was
good for them. A corn chute twelve by
twelve inches inside may be run on a slant
work all right but it wouldn't do to make
it much smaller than this.
The first floor above the stable is intend-
ed for granary bins on one side of the
driveway and a corn crib on the other side.
Some means of ventilating the crib part
must be devised which can be done by
leaving a three quarter inch space between
the drop siding.
A Cheap Smoke House — A 149
It is not necessary to do without a smoke
house on a farm. A small building that
will answer the purpose may be had with
very little outlay. The plan (Ai4g) shows
a little wooden smoke house eight by ten
feet with sides eight feet high. It is big
enough to hold as many hams and should-
ers as farmers' families usually require
with once filling, but it is an easy matter
to fill the house the second time if you have
the meat.
This little house requires no frame work
at all. All you need is a four by four for
sills and a two by four for plates and some
more two bv fours for rafters. You can
even dispense with the rafters, e.xcept the
two end pairs, if you want to make a board
roof. It is better however to make a good
shingle roof, then you have something
that will last as long as you want it. For
boarding you just take sixteen foot boards
and cut them in two in the middle. For
the front and back use twelve foot lumber
and the waste pieces work in for roof
boards if shingles are used.
A smoke house like this is not tight
enough to keep the meat in after being
T-O
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smoked. It is better to wrap it in paper,
then roll it up in thin cotton and sew it
up. You mustn't leave a place for a fly
to crawl in. You must then hang the pack-
BARN PLANS
25
ages with strings, perfectly free. They
must not touch each other and they must
not touch anything else. They need a cool
place but not damp.
A Granary — A 107
Farmers have more use for granaries
than formerly. There are two reasons for
this, one is that more stock is kept on the
farm and it is necessary to have grain the
year round, another is that owing to a
shortage of cars and speculation in grain,
the bins at threshing time and run through
the fanning mill when taken to the ware-
house for sale. By rigging the mill care-
fully a small proportion of the largest,
heaviest grains may be retained for seed
without adding anything to the cost. A
/7/ro/^ j/zpz/ya
ELEVATION OF SMALL GRANARY
SECTION
prices are not always satisfactory in the
fall and it pays to hold grain to sell later.
Then, more attention is now being paid
to seed. A grain house like this with a
place for scales and a fanning mill is a
ver)' valuable addition to any farm. The
different kinds of Sfrain maA' be stored in
good mill that will select say one bushel
out of ten of the kind of grain that you
want to sow and do it while blowing
the chaflf out of the grain you are sell-
ing without interfering with the grade is
a valuable mill, but there are just such fan-
ning mills made and their cost is little if
26
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
any more than the common kind on the
market.
In this scale room wires may be stretch-
ed for hanging the empty bags when
not wanted. By sinking the scales in the
floor each bag may be weighed as it is
It is difficult to arrange a plan of getting
in and out conveniently without a plat-
form. The door is too high to step up and
if you have a kind of stair to reach it you
might just as well have a good loading
platform as a cheap shaky affair. A grain
loaded. This is best done by having a two-
wheeled bag truck and a counter weight
on the scale beam so that the net weight
may be written down each time without
taking the time to calculate.
Great care should be taken in building
a granary to have it rat proof. The wall
of course must go below the frost and it is
a good plan to put a three inch tile all
around the bottom on the outside which
answers for drainage as well as to keep the
rats from burrowing under the wall. Some
farmers object to a platform in front of the
door just on account of rats, but if the door
is made heavy and made to fit tight with
a bit of hoop iron at the bottom, rats will
not iret in that wav if the door is kent shut.
house should be set up well from the
ground for two reasons, it should be the
height of the wagon for easy loading and
unloading and it should be high and dry
because grain should be kept from all un-
necessary moisture. There is moisture
enough in the air in damp weather anyhow
without taking chances on moisture from
the ground.
The doors to the bins are made of loose
boards dropped into grooves so that one
board may be put in or taken out as re-
quired. A little extra expense put into the
quality of the flooring is money well laid-
out. The floor should be free from shake
and fairly free from knots, at least there
should ho no black knots.
BARN PLANS
27
A Balloon Roofed Barn — ^143
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
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 heavv winds wrecked them. This
rLcy/rr/Ofl/
■s^cr/oA/
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 is so arranged that a feed car may be
run into the root house on a level.
It probably would be better to construct
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 a basement stable is
the difficulty of lighting it properly. A
good deal depends on the exposure. In
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
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
28
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
the straw back in the barn. A balloon It will be noticed that two hay chutes
roof works splendidly for this purpose, are provided to carry the hay down to the
The stacker may be turned to blow the feed alleys. Hay chutes are a great conven-
straw to the furtherest end of any gable. ience but they are draughty things unless
It is a good plan to pay careful attention doors are provided. In putting in the up-
to the ventilation of any stable. The air per floor timbers and joists it is a good
in a basement stable is seldom as good as plan to make them continuous by building
it should be. There are two air shafts in them up with two inch plank so as to tie
this plan with openings near the floor. the building together in both directions.
BARN PLANS
29
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 would
3^ - O —
ilv 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.
30
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
A Double Corn Crib — A 105
An old fashioned style double corn crib side opening from the center passage, but
with a drive between and a roof to cover if the space is desirable for wagon storage
both cribs is shown in plan (A105). This the doors are built at the end as shown.
^^c/yo/v or /?oi/s/-C co/f/v c/fz/a
crib is set on cedar posts planted three
and one-half feet in the ground and set up
two and one-half feet above ground to be
out of the way of mice and rats. The space
between the two cribs makes a convenient
place to store a couple of wagons. The
doors being at the end, the center space is
left free for this purpose. A good many
cribs built on this plan have the doors in-
Z7/?//<2"A-^K
— 7-0
The storage room overhead will be found
useful on anv farm.
A Small Double Poultry House — A 154
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 may be built of matched stuff
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 lodge-
ment for dust. In either case the building
is covered outside with tarred paper. The
sc/r/7rc///A/c /?oo/^
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i
1 1 , ,1 1
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/^^o^/LT/T-y ^oas£
BARN PLANS
31
paper is started, in strips, from the eaves
in front, carried over the peak and clear
down to the ground at the back.
Inside, the house is practically all one
room, but a roost curtain inay 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
the windows may be left open and the
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.
Attractive Stables — A 1 1 6
A very neat, attractive stable for a city
or village is here given. A good stone wall
is laid down below frost, or it may be car-
ried a little deeper and the part under the
carriage room excavated for a cellar, but
in this case a 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
/^/?0/V T ^L £:/^/7 r/o/v
2>2
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
^£?^Q^^ s/£y//^^^
because it is not exactly plain, still there is oats, and the upper door is wide enough
no great additional expense in building a and high enough to admit the supply
roof like this or in the little projection easily. The doors to the box stalls should
from the upper door in front. There is be made in halves so that the upper half
storage room above for hay, straw and may be opened and the lower half closed.
BARN PLANS
33
An Octagon Barn — A 150
This is a cement silo with a barn built
around it. The arrangement is a good one
for feeding young cattle to make them
grow, rather than to fatten steers for the
market. The silo is sixteen feet in diam-
eter and thirty-two feet high with a twelve
inch cement wall and a pit that reaches
three feet below the surface of the ground.
rods connect all the floor joists and all the
rafters. This makes a circle of three quar-
ter inch iron at the floor and again at the
roof, but if the different sides of the build-
ing are well tied together there will be no
getting away even if the iron rods are not
used.
The octagon construction has been
Three feet is deep enough to give a good
solid foundation and it is deep enough
when you come to pitch the last silage out
of the bottom.
The frame-work of the barn is very
light. The silo is used to support the mid-
dle and the barn really is braced from ev-
ery direction. Every side is both a brace
and a tie for the next side. To prevent
any possible pulling away from the silo.
£LCr/ITJON
worked out in this plan in preference to a
round barn because the construction is
cheaper. The sills and other timbers are
straight. The joists usually are cut square,
at least there are not very many bevels and
when a joist is beveled it is only on one
end and the other end is cut square. It is
the same with the rafters.
There is considerable room for straw
and hav around the silo and it is easv to
34
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
make places next to the silo for putting
both hay and straw down into the feed
alley.
The mangers being next to the feed al-
lay makes feeding as easy and convenient
as it is possible to have it. Perhaps no
other barn construction can offer such ad-
vantages at feeding time. The mangers
hold hay, corn stalks or other roughage
and the bottoms are tight for feeding corn
or ensilage. The feed room in front of the
silo doors is boarded to the ceiling so that
ensilage enough for a full feed may be
piled up out of the way of the ensilage
cart. A packing box with large castors
may be used for a silage cart or it may be
a well built cart with heavy iron wheels
and with hinged sides to drop over to the
manger.
There are four entrances for conveni-
FL OOR PL /1/v
BARN PLANS
35
ence in getting out the manure and most
of them will be used at times for letting
stock in or out, especially if the barn is
divided up in compartments for the dififer-
ent kinds of stock. Each post has a good
cement footing as shown in the plan and
the elevation shows the way the timbers
run.
There is no floor in the bottom except
the ground as it is intended to let the straw
and manure accumulate, but there is a
good feed room floor as this is where the
work is done three or four times a day. A
silo surrounded like this must be filled
with a carrier. A blast stack will not work
well on an incline and it is not convenient
to place the cutter close to the silo, but a
good carrier works all right.
A Small Poultry House — A i 5 3
A little two story poultry house that
looks like a plaything is shown in plan
(A153), but this house is alright so far as
it goes. It is especially valuable for a boy
who would like to start in the poultry bus-
iness but cannot afford a more expensive
house. This little house is four feet wide
and twelve feet long with a scratching
jambs to keep the cold from coming
through the cracks.
The nest boxes and roosts are loose
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
r '
so/7^p (//=> /f/vn £>otvvv
'
^£Cr/OA/
S/DE £L€l^/fT/ON
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
the windows. The inner screens may be
rigged with cord 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 screen
mav be of wire or canvas, or both. Canvas
36
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
is the best because the window can be then where considerable poultry is kept one of
left open and the chickens will get plenty these little houses would be found useful
of fresh air without a door. On farms occasionally to keep some breed separate.
Stable for Twenty-Four Cows — Aioi
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
used for soiling purposes 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
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
other animal. A great deal of trouble has
come from shutting bulls up 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
ample room for the driveway in the center
and a good passageway behind the cows
^/0£ £L€y}9r/o/v or D/^/Z^Y jS/F/T/V
BARN PLANS
37
besides giving room enough to place the
feed room, box stalls and other pens on
opposite sides of the driveway in one end
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
r/fOf/T ^/.^K^T/ON or o/rwy B^/fAi
of the Stable. The length of the building is a great advantage in admitting sun-
is eighty-four feet, but of course it could shine. The manger in this stable is placed
be extended if more room is desired with- two inches above the floor. It is two feet
out altering the width or the general plan, wide and six inches deep and the bottom
iil MI I I I i i I
/^/.oo/f /=//5'/v or /vooefiN o/rwy BffRf^
Placing the silo near the middle of the
building saves carrying the silage more
than fifty feet which is a great saving of
steps at feeding time. One great advant-
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
38
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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
dairyman 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
ha3'-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 two years hence
and the value of the cow depends on the
quality of the calf and tb.e feed and care
given it.
A silo for twenty-eight sows 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 silu
sixteen feet in diameter and thirtv-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 betw-een 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 wath chopped stuff in case
the owner puts a cutting box over head.
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.
An Implement Shed- -A 148
An implement shed sixteen feet wide
by forty-eight feet long is given in plan
(A148). 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
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 ([uarters for
farm machinery. We have been obliged
to call all the male men together and oc-
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
BARN PLANS
39
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-
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
er than the back part in order to leave
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,
but you don't need so much height to the
back end. The doors in this plan are ten
the rafters to prevent the building from
spreading. The two by four nailers shown
in the detail drawing is intended for the
end bents only.
In the end of the shed most convenient
a good solid bench should be rigged up
and fitted with a good vise. At the back
40
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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 heavv, 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.
A Cyclone Barn — A 126
A style of barn that has been built ex-
tensively in the west is shown in this plan.
The structure is made of light timbers,
but they are thoroughly braced in every
direction. So solid is the frame that one
half of the barn may be built and the other
side added as time will permit. The frame
work of each side is built on the truss plan.
The roof in the center is built on the canti-
lever principle. Even the roof projections
at the sides are built more to strengthen
the structure than to add space to the mow
room.
This is a kind of barn that farmers want
who farm about one hundred and sixty
acres of land and keep a variety of stock.
£:L£:yy7r/oA/
•J/TC r/OA/
BARN PLANS
41
42
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
Everything necessary in a barn may be en-
closed under one roof by following this
plan. The cows are on one side and the
horses on the other with hay storage in the
center and a feed room convenient to both
while it is easily shut off from either.
In making the cement floors it is better
to make a solid floor including the alley
and reaching to the outer walls on each
side. This is really necessary on the cow
stable side to have it right. It is better
on the horse side, then lay a plank floor
over the cement in the horse stalls.
This style of barn offers room for a
great deal of storage and a convenient way
to get rough stufif in. It is not so conveni-
ent to do threshing in a barn like this as
some others but the barn is not intended
to answer every purpose. It would be dif-
ficult to make one building just exactly
right for everything. There are enough
advantages in this building to satisfy most
farmers. It is cheap considering the
amount of room enclosed, and it is especi-
ally convenient in the arrangement for
the winter.
Dairy Barn with Storage — A 136
rROA/r CL ciy/iriohi
CO/f/V Cffifi
A great many dairymen object to hav-
ing storage of any kind over a cow stable.
There is more or less dust from the mows,
and the dust is objectionable for several
reasons. But it is impossible to keep cows
profitably unless the rough feed and straw
may be reached easily. Labor is so expen-
sive that even the steps necessary while
feeding must be counted and reckoned in
the cost. If there is no storage over the
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
easy feeding. This position also makes
BARN PLANS
43
it easy to get the green cut stalks into the very handy in the summer time if green
silo at filling time. feed is fed to the cows in the stable.
Not much corn is fed to dairy cows, but In the storage barn the hay mow
■siDC CLcyyvr/o/v
the crib is not far away from either cows reaches from the ground to the roof. For
or horses. A dairy room ten by seventeen comfort in cold weather it is better to
feet is built in the corner next to the stor- board up the side of this mow to the floor
C O ycJ*^ o^^'^ o
- J^iOO/t" /='L/J/V or CyfTTLC Bff/fV
age barn easily accessible to the stable. It over the driveway. It is necessary to have
would not be necessary to have a door at an opening through the floor over the
the outer end of the feed alley, but it is drivewav to use a hay fork The opening
44
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
may be boarded around and used as a great extent upon the kind of farming car-
chute to pitch hay down through for feed- ried on and the other buildings on the
ing, but such details must depend to a farm.
Hog House and Corn Crib — A 140
Hogs and corn may both be kept in the
same house economically by building a
house like the one shown in plan (A140).
The building is set up from the ground
about a foot on posts and pens are made
in the usual way with an alley between.
The floor above to hold the corn slants
each way from the center. There is about
seven feet head room in the middle over
the alley and the floor slopes to about five
feet to the sides of the building. This is
for two reasons, to get the corn down as
low as possible and to divide it into two
parts to prevent moulding. It is also nee-
BARN PLANS
45
essary to put a slatted partition on both
sides of the floor ridge if the house is filled
full of corn. There are two windows in
each end and the hog doors are hung with
Because of the shape of the corn floor
it is necessary to support it well in the cen-
ter which is done by running the alley par-
titions up to the floor joists above. This
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pins so they swing either way and the hogs
open them going or coming. A pin at the
bottom outside holds the door shut when
it is desirable to keep the hogs confined
is very important because the weight of
the corn will shove the sides of the build-
ing out if the floor is permitted to settle,
an accident which frequently occurs .
A Small Double Poultry House — A 1 5 i
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 differ 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.
There are many ways of building an
46
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
open scratching shed and poultry house,
but this plan seems to contain about eve-
rything that is necessary. The door open-
ing into the hen-house is just a frame cov-
ered with cotton which admits both light
poultry men more than anything else.
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
3€CT/OA/
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
rLOOff fL»N or CM/CKCN HOl/SC
at the highest point in front, turns over the
upper corner at the back and goes clear
down to the ground. This makes a thor-
oughly wind proof and damp proof house.
It is a peculiar thing about the damp-
ness in poultry houses. It is a compara-
tively simple question that has bothered
A Cement Block Smoke House
than anything else in the poultry line. It
is easier to build a satisfactory stable for
any other domestic animal than it is for
chickens unless we are satisfied with what
is commonly termed a curtain front house.
The phrase curtain front simply ineans
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 the front.
A147
Every farm should have a smoke house,
the better the house the more satisfactory
will be the meat. The plans shown of
CA147) is for a house constructed of ce-
ment blocks. It should be placed conveni-
ently near the house on a raise of ground
and a foundation started below the frost
line. A trench should be dug, say 3'/ feet
deep partly filled with concrete made of
one part of Portland cement, two and one-
half parts sand and five parts of broken
stone or gravel, ramming or puddling care-
fully. If plenty sand may be conveniently
had, it would be a good plan to secure a
block machine and have the blocks made
on the ground. In making the concrete
blocks, use a mixture of one part Port-
land cement, two and one-half parts
sand and five parts of crushed stone or
gravel.. The use of crushed stone or
coarse material for the back of the block
saves a great deal of cement and at the
BARN PLANS
47
same time gives a much better block than
where sand and cement alone are used.
Blocks made of sand and cement alone
and merely dampened are not concrete
blocks, but on the contrary are simply sand
blocks. The very term of concrete sug-
gests coarse material and plenty of water.
Great care should be taken in mixing the
different aggregates and they should be
mixed thoroughly dry and after they have
been thoroughly mixed add water. After
the blocks have been made they should
be set aside to be cured, and while cur-
ing, they should be sprayed thoroughly
from seven to ten days. This spraying
should commence about twelve hours after
the block has been made. Blocks should
never be used in building until they are
from twenty to thirty days old.
Farm cured meats are a great luxury if
the hogs are properly grown on pasture.
With a house like this and good pork to
start with, a farmer can supply his table
with good home-made bacon, hams and
shoulders the year round.
The best smoke is made from green
maple wood. Probably clean corn cobs
come next. With a smoke house thor-
oughly well built to keep out flies and oth-
er insects the meat may be smoked in the
spring and left in the smoke house all sum-
mer. By way of precaution a very little
smoke may be started once or twice a
month or some of the meat may be cover-
ed with paper and cloth. Very much de-
pends on the house. If the house is too
dry there will be too much evaporation
and the meat will become dry; if the house
is too damp it Avill be inclined to mould.
If it is intended to keep the meat in the
liouse after the smoking process is com-
pleted it will be necessary to fit the door
very carefully. . The frame must have a
couple of ridges all around and cement
worked in tight between these ridges to
make tight joints. The ventilator on top
must be fitted with a fine screen. Two
screens would be better. A coarse galvan-
ized screen on top and a fine screen inside
at the bottom.
The plates and rafters must be laid in
fresh cement mortar on top of the wall.
All spaces between rafters are filled in so
as to prevent cracks or openings of an}'
kind. Cross poles to support the meat are
made of four by fours with half inch pegs
inserted from the sides. The pegs are set
at an angle of about thirty degrees. This
48
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
will permit hanging the pieces of meat in preferred the same kind of peg may be
the old fashioned way of cutting a slit in used. Nails are not to be recommended
the skin in the bone end. If strings are for this purpose.
A Large Storage Barn — A. 139
A barn thirty-eight by fifty feet with sta-
bles underneat and a great deal of storage
room above is shown in plan (A139). The
barn should face the South with higher
ground at the north from which to build
an incline to drive onto the first floor.
BARN PLANS
49
From this incline hay and grain is carried
to the peak with a horse fork and distrib-
uted to the different mows.
A very strong frame is shown in this
plan that is well braced from the different
bins connected with spouts from the gran-
ary on the threshing floor above. There
is a good deal of storage room in this barn
and it is an easy barn to do the work in.
The hay from the hay chute drops on the
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directions. It is intended to board up and
down because this is a little cheaper than
siding and it is quicker put on. When the
stables are underneath and there is no ne-
cessity for a warmer construction up above
the boarding up and down is about as good
as anything.
The arrangement of the barn is intended
for farms where not many cows are sta-
bled. There is provision for horses, sheep
and a few young cattle and there are grain
feed room floor and the chute may be car-
ried as high as necessary through the mow
above. The size of the barn is thirty-eight
feet bv fifty feet on the ground, but its
principal size is in its height and shape of
the roof. This is a frame construction that
is especially well calculated to facilitate
the use of a horse fork because it leaves a
clear space through the center from one
gable to the other. The diagonal braces
tie the frame work together from every di-
50
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
rection so each side of the roof is an inde- This is a barn that would accommodate
pendent truss so thoroughly well con- the stock kept on a small farm and house
structed that one half of the barn would the crop under the same roof so conveni-
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stand alone. The manner in which the ently that one man could do all the chores,
timbers are put together is a study in repair farm machinery, prepare his seed
truss work. for spring and have a little leisure time.
A Small Chicken House- A119
A very neat little chicken house is shown
in plan (A119). In size it is only 7x16
feet but it makes comfortable quarters for
15 or 20 hens. It is set on posts a foot
or two from 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 verv often. It is
BARN PLANS
51
so small that the presence of an attendant
frightens the hens and causes a disagree-
able commotion. By proper management,
however, they can usually be let out into
rear. The nest box cover, which also is
the dropping board, is loose and may be
easily taken out through the door for
cleaning:. The roosts also are loose and
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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
may be removed easily.
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 very
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 poultry
will pick up a good deal of feed and the
fowls will be more healthv because of it.
A Small Barn for Horses — A 156
This plan is a very neat arrangement
for a city or village lot where two horses
are kept together with the necessary car-
riages and harness equipment. The car-
riage room with rack for washing buggies
is about as well arranged as it could be
and the harness room being under the
stairway occupies as little space as possi-
ble. Another nice arrangement about this
barn is the location of the manure door.
The stalls may be cleaned and the manure
thrown out at the back as far away as pos-
sible from the carriage entrance and from
the side entrance to the man's room.
^/rj£. £:i_E\//Kr/or.^
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
Where horses are kept in town there is more or less garden work to look after,
usually a lawn that requires attention and 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
CAjyj7/^z ;qoo/^ \
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r
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M/{//j yROQ^rf
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.
A Small Stable— A 124
A small cheap horse stabl;' is shown in
plan (A124). It sometimes happens that
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 eight
horses and there is room enough overhead
to hold the straw for bedding, but it would
be necessary to provide the feed from
some near-by storage. It is not necessary
to put a floor in this stable unless it be on
the side where the open stalls are built.
/i/v ^a/o y/>/fo
day, just stabling them long enough to
milk and feed grain and silage. In some
parts of the country the covered barnyard
is growing in favor.
utilized to furnish water for the cistern.
A cistern filter is placed inside the building
so it won't freeze. To have nice cistern
water it is best to run it through a filter.
/^/?o/vr e/.€*r>yr/o/v or s^/f/\f ^a/o y^/ro
56
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
The feed racks in the covered barnyard
are made movable to facilitate driving
through at cleaning time. Mild days in
winter the manure spreader is brought in
to them with as little work as possible.
With a cistern and a windmill the water
tank is kept supplied all the time so the
cows may run to it when thev want to. The
m
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S/tffAl ^A/O Y/fffD ^/./f/lf
at one door, loaded and taken out at the
the other. The racks are placed in the cen-
ter under the feed shoots so the roughage
from the storage above may be dropped in-
stable lloor should be about two feet high-
er than the floor in the covered barnyard.
This gives an eight foor ceiling for the sta-
ble and a ten foot ceiling in the yard.
A Single Corn Crib — A106
Sometimes a single corn crib is prefer-
al)lc to a double one. The corn keeps bet-
ter in a single crib because the air circu-
lates all around. Sometimes corn will
mould in the center, even in a good crib
that is properly constructed and not too
BARN PLANS
57
wide. Sometimes farmers bore the floor full ered over, and it is doubtful if they help
.of holes to help the ventilation but this lets very much. A better plan is to have the
fT sides carefully constructed and to have the
the shelled corn through and as dirt set-
tles to the bottom the holes get easily cov-
corn in a good condition when it is put in
crib. A crib built after this plan may be
any length but the posts should be not
more than eight feet apart.
A Horse Shed — A i 2 i
a number of brood little expense.
On farms where
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
to 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.
A light shed may be built on this plan,
which is fifteen by thirty-four feet, at very
HOR6£: ^neo
It should front on the stack
yard and face the south if possible. For
economy it is placed on cedar posts let in
the ground below frost, but it should be
thoroughly banked up in the fall to keep
out the cold winds. In banking up a shed
like this set a board all around the outside
to keep the earth away from the building
proper. Fit the board nicely so there are
no chinks to let in the cold draft.
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r7ff/yO£-f?
58
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
A Model Cow Barn — A158
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 carefully to
provide every comfort for a herd of thor-
oughbred Guernseys.
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
EZD
The entire floor is made of concrete, in-
cluding manger and manure drains which
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.
concrete and troweled smooth with a
curve at the floor line to leave no chance
for the 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.
BARN PLANS
59
■ — I
■ — I
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2- •
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RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
There is a cement top to the concrete
floors which is finished rough enough to
prevent sHpping and to hold the bedding.
Cows in this stable face towards the cen-
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.
'■^-"i:.r •"-
ter and the center aisle is wide enough to
drive through with a wagon and hay-rack
for hauling loose hay and fodder. The
silos are located at the end, the silage be-
Careful calculations were made to secure
plenty of fresh air for each animal as the
sanitary conditions with such a valuable
herd of animals is an important feature.
A Cow Barn for Forty C(nvs — A 15c)
A cow barn for the accommodation of
forty cows having a feed alley of sufificient
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 mangers 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
62
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
behind the cows, starting at five feet four
from the mangers at one end and finishing
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 exhausted
through the slat ventilator towers. About
i,8oo cubic feet of air space is provided for
each animal.
An Elevated Chicken House — Ai6^
This plan elevates the poultry house
about fourteen inches above the ground
for the purpose of preventing rats from
making nests under the floor. It is high
enough up so that cats and dogs can have
free access underneath and this space also
ofifers a shady protection for fowls in the
summer time. At the approach of cold
weather in the fall this space is boarded
up and manure is banked against the
BARN PLANS
63
boarding to keep out the cold. If horse
manure is used considerate heat may be
generated.
As the building is not very heavy the
sills are made of two pieces of two by six,
floor and this wall is made tight to keep
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
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H 1 Mr-
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one laid flat on the supporting cedar posts
and the other turned edgewise as shown
in the drawing.
The south end of the building is only
four feet high above the floor and the win-
dows are placed well down. This has the
advantage in the winter time of letting the
sun shine on the floor where the chickens
can make the best use of it.
The north wall is six feet high above the
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
64
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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
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 pass 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.
Barn for a Small Farm — A160
This is a small barn for a sma41 farm and other forage. This same opening ans-
wherc four or five horses are kept besides wers for passing feed down to tlie mangers
a few milch cows and a little other stock, from the feed lofts.
This barn was designed for lo cows, five There are windows all around this barn
horses and about fifty fowls and there is for light and ventilation; a provision that
room for a couple of breeding sows. In
every stable a box stall or two comes in
handy. A box stall is almost an absolute
necessity sometime during the year cither
for sick animals because some special at-
tention is required.
The entire upper part is floored and
there is an opening over the storage and
implement room to pitch up hay. straw
is too often left out when farm barn plans
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 nuich more
than siding and the sun and light let in
is a great advantage to stock
The floor of this stable should be of con-
crete with the upper layer an inch thick
composed of one part Portland cement
BARN PLANS
65
and two parts clear soft sand but in mak-
ing a floor like this it should be remem-
bered that hard smooth cement is slippery
and dangerous. The passage way may be
marked off in diamonds with a regular tool
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.
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-
dle 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
PlA/^ or GA7^//
In laying a concrete floor in anv building
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.
66
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
A Plain Horse Barn — A161
A plain straight-away horse barn with
ten single stalls, five box stalls, feed room,
harness room and vehicle room with a
teen horses and it will hold feed enough to
supply them for a long time. The build-
ing is thirty-seven feet wide by sixty-eight
■iiii.iii,«'"iiW"'i),,jii,.«.-,a>»'
:,mh. 7=>ER^F'E:c-r/\yE:
wash platform in the center is given in
this plan. There is a driveway through
the center wide enough to admit a load of
feet long. It is set on a stone foundation
with two rows of stone piers supporting
the floor joists and posts which run to pur-
lin plates.
There is a large vent shaft running from
the stable ceiling to and through the hay
mow with doors for throwing down hay
or fodder as well as for ventilation. Grain
in sacks can be hoisted up this ventilator
shaft and conveniently dumped into feed
bins which have hopper bottoms and
spouts leading to the mixing room below.
hay or a load of straw, if so desired, but
there are doors opening outside in the ga-
ble to pitch in hay and straw, either by
hand or horse fork, so it would not be nec-
essary ordinarily to drive inside with a
bulky load, but a good passageway be-
tween horse stalls is a great convenience
anyway.
This barn will easilv accommodate fif-
J^ROMT E^LE:v/Kr/o/\/
BARN PLANS
67
In the driveway at one side of the mix-
ing room door is a water supply pipe and
watering trough with a hose connection
fT
7~
i
length of the stall room on each side of the
driveway. The first thickness of these
stall floors is laid in hot tar, then two
thicknesses of tar roofing felt is put on be-
»Ox -STAi-i.
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SOX^S7AZ.£.
V^H/CL'E. T^aO/^
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to supply water to the wash room on the
floor of the vehicle room.
The stalls are floored with a double
thickness of oak flooring one and three-
quarter inches thick slightly sloping to
cast iron gutters which run the entire
ing well mopped over with tar, and this
covered with the upper thickness of oak
one and three-quarter inch flooring. Each
stall has a hay chute from above together
with a feed box and salt box and each stall
has a window for light and ventilation.
A Barn for Dairy Cows^Ai62
This cow barn is forty feet wide by room, wash room for washing utensils
eighty-one feet long and will accommo- and an ofiice. Along one side a silo is
date twenty-four cows. There is a feed placed near the mixing room and conven-
68
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
MA
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BARN PLANS
69
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
heavv 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 tlie
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
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.
Small Carriage House — A132
Plan A 1 32 is a small carriage house
which may be built at very little expense.
It often happens that a man wants to keep
a horse for his own driving when he don't
care to put a great deal of expense on the
stable. It is a mistake in such cases to
build a cheap looking afTair because a man
is never satisfied with it and it injures a
person's property. It is just as easy to
build an attractive stable, one that is well
FRony E.LE.VATion
5iDe: E.uE.vA7ion
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
proportioned and well designed because There is sometimes more genuine satisfac-
if rightly laid out it costs but little more tion in a cheap building well cared for than
than a poor looking affair that has a cheap in an expensive structure that is permitted
appearance. It is all right to build cheap to go to seed,
if nobody finds it out, but we often see mis- The size of this barn is eighteen by
T
HA-T LOFf
a
Floor Pi-An
erable structures that give away the own-
er's ambition.
Here is a stable that costs very little to
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.
Small Bani for a
This is just a little affair, onl)^ eighteen
by twenty feet, but it is big enough to
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
three or four courses of brick laid around
under the sills the building will set all
right probably for a good many years.
Many small barns are just blocketd up
on stones placed at the corners and one
or two places along the sides but this is
objectionable because it makes a harbor
underneath for vermin. The foundation
Secohd Floor
twenty-four feet. Its attractive appear-
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.
Village Lot — Am
-.SourH F..i*«g
BARN PLANS
71
should have some air but air enough will
penetrate through the chinks between the
bricks if thev are laid without mortar.
Storage
5TALL
STALL
TiR&T Flo OF?
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 good looking 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
it a presentable appearance even in winter.
An evergreen or two plahted 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
>SECOf^o Floor -
vines should never be tacked close
side of a building, they need air
sides.
to the
on all
A Cheap Hog House — A122
The cheapest kind of a hog house is
shown in plan (A132.) It is only seven
feet six inches wide, but it may be any
length. This house is thirty-one feet six
inches long because this length is covered
by two sixteen foot joists. Even on well
regulated hog farms where there is a good
solid hog house this shed afifair will be
found useful to hold the overflow. It of-
ten happens that shoats in fall are kept
in a muddy feed lot or sold too soon for
lack of just such shelter as this to hold
them while being finished. Beginners in
the hog business could not do better than
72
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
to build a little cheap hog house like this
to start with.
The seven and one-half foot width per-
mits of roofing the shed with sixteen foot
boards cut in two in the middle. Each six-
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 back so a scraper
may be used. In cold weather this space
■ i
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teen foot section will make two pens near-
ly eight feet square which will hold from
five to seven or eight pigs according to
size. The posts are just set into the ground
and the floor raised about a foot to keep it
dry. Four two by six joists run lengthwise
is closed by a hinged board which drops
down on the inside. This precaution is
necessary because a cold draft on the floor
is a very bad thing for hogs. This little
hog house don't run into very much money
but it is a very useful, practical aff^air.
A Small Carriage House — A131
A small carriage house with stable room
for two horses or a horse and a cow is a
very convenient thing when a person has
a good sized lot in the city or village. \
cow appreciates comfort and will give
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 nec-
essary.
There are a good many designs for small
carriage houses, some of which are decid-
edly homely. A good many of the fancy
buildings are too expensive. Here is a
s/oc CLCir//r/oA/
horse stall makes a splendid stall for a
cow, better than what is ordinarily de-
signed for a cow stall because there is
more room and it gives more comfort. A
r/fONT CLCI/'/fT/ON
BARN PLANS
73
comparatively cheap structure, but it is
all right for looks and it is a convenient
stable to do work in. There is a hav chute
corner of the mangers for grain and other
feeds.
A carriage house like this may have a
SCCOA/O FLOOR
which reaches from the loft to the manger
below with openings for both stalls, which
is a very convenient arrangement and is
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
Some kind of a cattle shed is necessary
in connection with every feed lot. Plan
(A123) shows a cattle shed ninety feet
long and ten feet six inches wide. It is
built of two by fours for framing, covered
with boards twelve feet and sixteen feet
long which cut to advantage without
waste except at the ends.
There is a low-down manger which runs
the full length of the shed against the
back wall. The front side of the manger
is bedded in the ground which together
with a little banking on the outside pre-
vents the cold winds from blowing under.
Some feeders fail to realize the importance
of this precaution. The north wind seems
much colder when it forces through a
small opening. There is something about
the bottom of a shed that seems to invite
plank floor or the floor may be left out en-
tirely 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 bottom stall.
Cheap Cattle Shed— A123
a current of air from the north, but this
feed manger arrangement seems to get
74
the better of. Mangers should be low for
another reason. For thousands of years
cattle have been accustomed to feed from
the ground. While in pastures they keep
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
The shed is supported by short cedar
posts which are set well into the ground,
the tops of them being cut almost even
with the surface. The doors are made
rw^cir/f
i
SECTION /7/V/7 fLHN OF C/fTr/.E ■S»€0
their heads down nearly all of the time,
but for some unaccountable reason they
are expected to hold their heads two or
three feet high when being fed artificially.
wide enough and high enough to get in
easily with a manure spreader, and there
are no posts or partitions in the way so
that it is easy to clean out the manure.
Ice House Design — A162
An ice house to hold two hundred tons
of ice is given in this plan. 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-
ty-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-eights 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,
then another row of two by four studding
lined on the inside again with another
boarding of matched pine sheathing, then
an inch of block mineral wool, and this is
protected on the inside with another board-
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
diflferent 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 at a time
as the ice lowers in summer.
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 it is possible to get it.
An interesting feature of this house is
o
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o
76
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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.
A Large Bank Barn — A166
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
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
FRAMING AT END
BARN PLANS
17
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
BARN PLANS
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82
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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
scarce or if for any other reason a farmer
prefers cement construction. This barn
is placed side ways 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
stack in the yard on this lower side of tlie
barn.
The basement is partitioned ofi:" 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 heavv timbers over the stable
and to support them with 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
two 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-
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.
Stable and Graiiarv — A130
A cheap little stable and granary with
considerable loft room may be built after
plan (A130). It is twenty-one by thirty-
four feet, including the implement shed at
the end. This little barn is intended for
a small farm where a little grain is grown
and fed to horses that are used partly for
farm work and partly perhaps for teaming
for hire.
There is an eight foot ceiling over the
stable and over the grain bins and a ten
foot ceiling over the machinery room, be-
cause a stable is warmer with a low ceiling
and eight feet is not high enough to ac-
commodate all kinds of farm machinery.
On some small farms this shed room
would not be necessary for storage pur-
poses, but it would be very handy to drive
loads in at night for safe keeping. The
opposite doors make it very handy to drive
through, which is much better than being
obliged to back out with a heavy load.
The grain bins are also filled from this
shed by drawing the sacks directly from
the threshing machine and dumping
through the openings shown in the plan.
Each opening is three feet square and is
closed with a swinging sash fitted with
four lights of glass.
This little barn is quite different from
the ordinary, but it is not necessary to
build a barn just exactly like some other
BARN PLANS
83
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Floqr Plam.
84
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
Small Barn with Ell Shed— A163
A small barn with an ell shed attached ments. The whole of the second floor is
is shown in this design. The barn proper given over to storage for hay or grain in
which is 28 feet wide by 56 feet long is in- the sheaf.
SIDE ELEVATION
tended to accommodate five head of horses A hay bay extends from the ground to
in about one-third of the floor space leav- the roof in one end of the building but a
ing the other part for a driveway with floor extends over the stable and the great-
storage for grain, hay and farming irnple- er part of the threshing floor. The thresh-
n
1
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CONSTRUCTION OF SHED
BARN PLANS
85
ing floor sectic'n may be partitioned ott
from the horse stable to mc'ke the stable
warmer.
The shed forms an L runninsr across the
TRANSVERSE SECTION
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
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
should have because there are times where
the yard is wet and muddy in spite of ev-
ery precaution. A wide roof dripping into
a barn yard is objectionable but the drip
from this little short roof is insignificant.
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 is pos-
a
R
SECTION THROUGH SHED
T^-.-,
THPesH/no ruooR
"'^^ i. 8' o'
86
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
sible to obtain without roofing the whole
thing.
This little barn with shed attachment
is not expensive but is more convenient
than some larger structures. The cost is
within the reach of any farmer although
he may not have more than 20 acres of
land. A transverse section is shown giv-
ing a good idea of how the building is
framed. It is a strong frame that is eas-
ily put together and there is no waste of
timber.
Inexpensive Poultr}^ House — A170
A cheap little poultry house is shown in
this design. It is ten feet square on the
ground, the front is eight feet and the
rear five feet high. Where only from ten
to twenty hens are kept this little house
will be found very useful. The only open-
ings are a door in the east side, the large
dow shade roller, so that it may be pulled
down over the opening on cold days and
rolled up when the sun shines warm.
Such a curtain should be thin enough to
let the air through freely. It is a splendid
ventilator for a poultry house because it
lets the air in and out gently without any
DESIGN FOR AN INEXPENSIVE CITY POULTRY HOUSE
PcRsptcriVE. View
window on the south side and the little
door to permit poultry to pass in and out.
A little house like this can be built if so
desired without so much as a frame, ex-
cept two by fours at the top and bottom
to nail the boards to and another piece of
two by four for the door and window
frames. The window frame consists of a
two by four at the bottom and another
two by four at the top, spaced to hold the
sashes in such a way as to permit them
to pass back to leave the opening free. It
is a good plan to have a wire netting over
the window outside and a muslin curtain
inside. A curtain may roll up on a win-
'
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DROPPING Boards
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riG. 2
Ground Plan.
11 1
draft. Some poultry houses are built
without glass, thin muslin being depended
on for both light and air. Such houses are
usually dry and it is well known that a
poultry house must be dry or the fowls
won't do well.
A poultry house like this nuist have a
good floor. One of the greatest annoy-
ances in poultry keeping is to have rats
burrow underneath. Rats prefer a poul-
try house to any other building because
there is always feed around that they can
get and there is always water. Rats like
eggs too, and they have been known to
sample young chickens, but it is easy to
BARN PLANS
87
block them out of a poultry house by mak-
ing a concrete floor. Concrete for this
purpose may be pretty much all sand and
gravel. Most any kind of a composition
will answer the purpose. A little lime and
a little cement, or lime without cement,
or cement without lime mixed up with
water in most any proportion will do the
business. It should be pounded in and
come up about even with the sill.
A Tower Tank House — A145
Where a water pressure is wanted it is
often a good plan to put the water tank
in the windmill tower. In plan (A145)
the tank is shown in the dotted lines. It
is placed ten feet above the ground and the
tank itself is fourteen feet high by ten feet
in diameter at the bottom.
In placing a tank like this it is necessary
to carry a three inch pipe through the tank
and pass the pump shaft through this pipe.
The pipe is screwed into a flange at the
bottom and the flange is bolted to the bot-
tom of the tank to make it thoroughly
water tight. The pipe must be steadied
at the top and the shaft must have a bear-
ing, both, above the tank and below it so
it won't scrape on the pipe. The well and
pump of course are directly under the tank
in the center of the tower.
The outside boarding is made double
and lined with paper to be warm in winter.
There is generally some drip from a
tank placed like this for which reason the
room below is seldom made use of for any
purpose, but a few farmers have utilized
this room for a bath room. They make a
cement bottom with a drain to carry oflF
the surplus water and put in a shower bath
connected with a pipe from the tank. A
shower bath is the most convenient and
probably the most healthful of any kind
of a bath. At any rate it is easily kept
clean.
There is no reason why a farmer or his
men should be denied the privilege of get-
ting a bath when they want it. There are
bath rooms in almost all city houses and
there should be bathing conveniences on
every farm. By placing a stove in this
room under the tank it could be made com-
TNNH House
88
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
fortable in winter as well as summer, and
a stove with a water heater attached to
the tank would give a water pressure so
that the shower could be made any tem-
perature desired.
The height of this tower is forty feet
to the wind mill. Of course the height of
a wind mill tower must depend upon its
location. If the tower is built on high
ground it is not necessary to go up so high
unless the wind mill is surrounded by
high buildings or trees.
Small Carriage House — A135
The little barn, eighteen by twenty-four
feet, as shown in the plans and elevations
is a very appropriate design and can be used
•3W£ £Lri^/7r/ON
in either village or city. It is not expen-
sive, in fact, it is probably as cheap as any
satisfactory structure could be. It is bet-
ter not to take up room in such a small
barn in building a stairway, as the upright
ladder placed against one of the partitions
answers the purpose very well. To keep
the cold from blowing down through the
opening a light door with a 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 work bench in the
front corner of the carriage room between
the door and the first window. It is easy
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to encourage boys to work with tools, es-
pecially since the graded schools have
taken up manual training. The 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 valuable now
as it was in Froebel's time.
BARN PLANS
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 a 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 anvone.
A Neat Carriage House — A114
A very neat carriage house is shown in
plan (A114). It is intended to house two
horses and have room enough for a couple
of carriages. The building is supported
rffONT CL£y>fr/o/v
by a stone wall three feet in the ground
and one foot above ground to keep the
floor well up, but the height of course must
depend on the nature of the ground and
location in reference to the street and
driveway. It is not desirable to approach
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.
The way a driveway approaches the
stable afifects the appearance of the stable
a good deal. Generally a pleasing effect
may be obtained by a curved driveway
where it is kept neatly trimmed at the
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
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 lengthwise
of the building through the center. Joists
are carried from the sills to meet the gird-
er. The floor is double, the first layer be-
90
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
ing 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 topped with tar, both under-
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
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neath and on top. The upper floor is one
and three-eighths matched hard pine. solid because stable planks soon wear
In the stalls two inch planks are laid through and it is necessary to turn them
lengthwise, having an incline of two inches end for end, sometimes within a year.
Hay and Grain Barn — A167
A long barn designed to hold a good
deal of hay and grain is shown in this illus-
tration. It is a timber frame covered with
eight inch drop siding and shingles.
The track for the hay fork is suspended
from the peak by seven-eighth inch iron
rods and the track extends the whole
length of the building and projects several
feet at each end. This arrangement makes
it convenient to fill the barn from either
end or from both ends as occasion re-
quires. There is a driveway crosswise
SIDE ELEVATION
BARN PLANS
91
through the barn at the center. This drive- farmers prefer to have it convenient to
way is floored with a two inch plank floor, the fields because it is never used for
but it is not necessary to floor the other housing stock unless it be sheep and they
LONGITUDINAL SECTION
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part of the building except with round
poles to keep the hay and grain sheaves
off the ground. Such a barn is intended
more for storage on large farms where
considerable grain is harvested and hay
cut either to feed or for sale.
It is not necessary to have such a barn
near the other farm buildings. Many
don't require quite such frequent atten-
tion as other animals.
The cross center floor is intended for
threshing, but there is no provision for
storing threshed grain. It is supposed that
there is a granary near the house and oth-
er buildings and it is better to haul the
grain from the machine.
A Double Corn Crib — A120
A double corn crib with a storage room
overhead and a driveway in the center is
shown in this illustration. A peculiar
feature of this plan is the siding which is
split from two by fours with a band saw
in such a way as to get three pieces of sid-
92
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
ing from one strip. After the siding is
ripped out it is run through a sticker to
give the curve as shown in the the detail
drawing. This is an extra protection
strong enough to hold the corn by being
well nailed with wire nails on the outside
of the studding which is placed twenty-
four inches apart. It is impossible to get
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the plates. If you expect to do this, you
can not have any cross beams except in
the front and rear. There is very little
side pressure on an ice house, so the con-
struction can be made strong enough
without cross beams in the center.
The door openings in all cases should
reach from the ground to the peak. In
Small Iviver\^ Barn
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out again one at a time as needed to get
at the ice. A single pulley in the peak
and another one hooked in the sill at the
bottom answers very well for a hoisting
tackle. The ice ma)^ be lifted straight up
from the sled or pulled up an incline. The
thickness of the ice and the size of the
blocks will have to govern the filling.
-A138
For a village or small city this plan of-
fers a comparatively cheap building that
mav be used to advantage bv a man who
r/7of»r ct^ctn^rtON
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
rLOOR Pi/f/v or j/i/jll L/rrry
96
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
nine or ten months in the year, when they
are not in use, and there are wagons in the
way almost all the time. Storagfe room is
•SI DC CLCir// r/o/v
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
this should be so is a mystery. It costs
nothing to be neat and neatness attracts
trade in these lines as well as others. From
general observation it would seem that a
place for everything and everything in its
place is a suggestion which applies to liv-
erymen and blacksmiths all over the
country.
Convenient Horse Barn — A129
Plan (A129) shows how to build a small best to keep the horses by themselves,
convenient horse barn twenty-one by thir- There are a good many farmers who object
ty-two feet in size. A building like this to stabling horses in the same building
is verv convenient on farms where it seems with other animals. Besides it often is
BARN PLANS
97
more convenient to have a small horse about three inches higher than the floor
barn near the house and in case of fire behind the horses an incline will be se-
there is a further advantage in having the cured sufficient to keep the feed room dry
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buildings separated. The old English
plan was to scatter farm buildings far
enough to prevent a general conflagration
in case one should take fire, but labor cut
less of a figure then.
This little barn should have a cement
floor with foundation walls going below
frost. By making the feed passageway
Cattle Shed— A155
Sheds on three sides of a hollow square is
an old style way of building feeding sheds.
It is probably the best way now except
that it is more difficult to economize labor
with this construction than it is with a
straight away proposition where you can
run a railway and a feed truck the whole
as well as the floor under the horses. Most
horsemen prefer to cover a cemet floor
with planks where the horses stand. This
may be done in every stall or in some of
the stalls while others are left with the
cement floor. The planks should be two
inches thick with tongue and groove
matching laid at a slight incline.
length of the shed. The hollow square
proposition has the advantage of warmth
because it is protected from the east, west
and north winds. Yards like this are al-
ways built opening towards the south.
In this plan there are convenient gates
to drive in when bringing roughage or
98
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
BARN PLANS
99
other feed to the cattle. The gates to look
well should be made right and left and
they should have automatic devise to fas-
ten them quickly. Animals confined in a
yard in the vi'inter time are crazy to get
out. They learn how to slip up alongside
of a wagon and crowd through the gate
when the driver is engaged with his team.
This is a source of annoyance that can
hardly be avoided, but good gates that
swing easily and fasten quickly help a
good deal.
It is customary to drive around with a
rack load of feed and dump a little in each
feed rack as often as necessary. Sometimes
a self-feeder for corn in the ear is placed
in the middle of the yard and this helps a
good deal in saving labor and the labor
problem is worrying feeders more every
year. There are feed carriers that may be
hung from an overhead track to pass
around through a shed like this, but us-
ually the cars do not hold enough to ef-
fect much of a saving.
A Hog- House — A109
In building a hog house it is necessar}'
to consider convenience in getting the
hogs in and out, to provide means for load-
ing them into wagons and a place for heat-
ing water and to do the work of killing.
'Srcr/OA/ OF /^OC //OLfS£
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 moving 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-
sirable to select out one or two from cer-
tain pens. That is the time when the al-
ley door will be appreciated. Another
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
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RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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 raf-
ters 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.
Carriage House and Stable — A127
The illustration on this page shows a
carriage house and stable twenty by thir-
ty feet on the ground and fourteen feet
high to the plates. The ceiling is eight
foot six inches which is about as low as
ing things. No carpenter likes to have
such remarks made about him.
The internal arrangement of this stable
is different from most small carriage
houses. There is a box stall about nine
FRoriy ELLE.vAyiori.
you can have a ceiling in a carriage house
because you must have room enough for
a top buggy. For this reason the doorway
must be about the same height. We all
have had experience in catching a buggy-
top on the lintel of a low doorway. It
seems to be the proper occasion for say-
feet square. It is difticult 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 woud be more box
stalls, but it really requires about three
BARN PLANS
lOI
times as much room to stable horses this
way. No man begrudges the room, but
most men don't like to put up money
enough to enclose it properly.
The ideal arrangement for stabling a
horse is a big box stall with a good sized
window for light and a door cut in half
Floor Puai-i
SO that the upper part may be left open
during the day time to let the horse look
out. A box stall shut up tight is a prison
for a horse; they like to see things as well
as other folks.
Some box stalls are fitted with rubbing
boards. These consist of planks about
two inches thick turned edgewise to the
horse and fastened to the sides of the stall
just low enough down so the horse can't
rub his tail. A box stall needs no floor
and there should be no feed rack or man-
ger. A box on the ground to feed oats
in is all the manger necessary. The hay
should be put in at frequent intervals in
small quantities placed lightly on the floor
or bedding against the side of the stall.
This way of feeding has often cured
horses of chronic indigestion.
In building a stable it is a great deal bet-
ter to find out all these little details and
build accordingly. There are several rea-
sons why box stalls are better than stand-
ing stalls with mangers. A horse loves
his freedom. To understand this it is only
necessary to watch a horse when you take
the bridle or halter off.
One great defect in horse stalls as you
ordinarily see them is lack of ventilation.
It is quite common to see the inner walls
of a stable in winter white with frost.
The frost wouldn't be there if the stable
was dry as it should be. It is not neces-
sary to put in an elaborate system of ven-
tilating pipes in a small stable. The win-
dows and doors are sufficient if they are
managed right. The breath of one or two
horses is easil}^ taken care of, but even
in small stables such things often are ne-
glected.
In this barn the carriage room is closed
off from the stable, which is right. The
odor from the stable is a damage to the
carriages and to the rugs. The stable
should be warmer than the carriage room,
so the door works right from both sides.
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
of twenty-four foot sections. It is placed
so that the windows look to the south to
gather all the sunlight possible.
A passageway on the north side, where
the roof is high to make head room, is par-
titioned off and the work of feeding is
done along this passage. A door lifts up
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-
I02
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
ception of the space occupied by the dust commodate from twenty to thirty birds
boxes the whole floor, except this passage- according to the size.
PCRSPtCrivE Vi^
way, is given over to scratching purposes
as the roosts and dropping boards are ele-
DusT Box
Dust Box
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Ground Plan.
vated so the chickens can work under
them. A section of this house will ac-
Poultry men argue by the hour about
* the necessity of an alleyway. There are
I many different opinions. Some think an
! alleyway is worth all the room it takes
I 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.
Cheap Grain Building — A128
A cheap building to hold grain and corn
is shown in this design. It is a low build-
ing with studding only ten feet long, but
that is about as high as a person cares to
pitch corn or threshed grain. Just ordin-
ary one by four pine strips spaced to }i
inch are nailed on the outside of two by
four studding to make the corn crib, but
the wheat and oat bins of course are made
tight all around and a little extra work is
pul on the floor.
There is considerable side pressure in a
wheat bin which must be guarded against
by using a few extra braces, but heavy
timbers riro unneccssarv in a bin the size
of this one. This building may be floored
overhead for storage, or the bins may be
left open to the roof. By leaving the
space open the building will be lighted
sufficient by the small window in each
gable.
It is not intended to Hoor the driveway
unless it is needed when using a fanning
mill to clean grain, but the building would
be all the better for having a good solid
floor the full size. This plan provides for
a building thirty by forty feet. Thirty
feet is wide enough for convenience either
in building or for use afterwards, but of
course it may be anv length.
BARN PLANS
103
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104
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
Barn for Small Farm — A 169
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 mak-
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.
It seems difficult for some livestock men
to understand this phenomenon. The rea-
SIDE ELEVATION
ing a good liberal passageway through
the center of the barn.
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
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
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
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
stuff is used there is a little opening be-
BARN PLANS
105
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RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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
manv.
A Rat Proof Granary— A141
A dry floor and one that is rat proof is
made by excavating for the foundation of
the granary about six inches deep. Then
pound in three or four inches of cinders
and lay the sills and joists on the cinders.
After the building is up and enclosed
make cement concrete by mixing one part
cement, three parts sand and four parts
gravel or broken stone. Fill in with this
concrete to the tops of the joists, then
while the concrete is soft put down the
matched floor, nailing it right into the soft
concrete. As soon as the floor is finished
shut the building up tight and bank
around the outside to keep the air away
from the concrete so it will dry slowly.
S/V/? ^J^r /O?' T/OA/
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BARN PLANS
107
The matched boarding is put on the out-
side of the studding and the siding nailed
over that. This is for the purpose of
leaving the inside exposed so that a cat or
dog could easily reach a rat if it should
get inside. Hollow walls make harbors
for rats but this construction leaves them
no protection.
There is a window in the back end of the
alley and another one over the door in
front. The doors are made heavy and
swing out. They close against heavy jams
so that rats and mice have very little en-
couragement to get in at the door. The
scales are let in the floor flush. Provision
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must be made for this before the concrete is put in.
A Tank House— A144
Every farm should have a wind-mill
and every wind-mill should have a tank
house connected with pipes in such a way
as to keep a continuous supply of water
a tank inside six feet high, four feet wide
and twelve feet long. In the winter time
a space between the sides of the tank and
the sides of the building may be filled in
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for the stock. Tank houses are wet things
and it is better not to have one inside of
a barn. A tank house is necessary to shade
the tank so the sun won't spoil it, to shade
the water in summer to keep it cool and
to protect it from frost in winter.
Plan (A144) shows a snug little house,
tightly built with paper in the walls and
with manure to keep water from freezing.
Pipes from the bottom of the tank to the
watering troughs are connected with
valves either underground or in boxes that
are covered with manure. The valves have
long stems so they may be turned from
outside the building, or by opening the
little door and reaching in.
io8
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
A Small Bani— A113
A small barn with two double stalls and makes a harbor for rats. It is better to
one single stall with standing room for have it boarded up. The stable doors in
another horse is offered in this plan. The this plan, both at the north side and at
rioirpH 3] DC
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
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 ans-
wers the purpose as well as a more expen-
sive one.
We 5
is kept for carriage room and storage.
There is no foundation under this barn
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
a
BARN PLANS
109
A Stave Silo— A157
The cheapest way to make a satisfactory
silo is to build it of two inch staA^es with a
cement foundation and pit. Stave silos
don't last forever, probably their average
usefulness is somewhere between five and
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ELEVy^TlON OF SILO
ten years. It will vary according to the
material used in the construction, the care
with which they are built and the protec-
tion they receive afterward, especially
when not filled. The best stave silos will
go to pieces if the hoops are not kept tight
when the silo is empty.
The most convenient height to make a
stave silo is thirty-two feet above the wall.
This gives an opportunity to use sixteen
foot stuff to advantage. In building a
silo sixteen feet in diameter it is only nec-
essary to use two lengths of staves, a
short length, eight feet, and a long length,
sixteen feet, in order to break joints at dif-
PLAN or ^ILO
ferent heights. If larger silos are built it
is a good plan to use enough four foot and
twelve foot lengths of staves so that you
have only one joint to two solid staves on
one level. Where only two lengths are
used as in this plan the joints and solid
staves come alternately, but even this
makes a very strong structure when the
hoops are pulled up tight as they should
be at all times.
The staves should not be wider than
eight inches. The edges should be straight
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
and true, the bevel carefully made on a
sticker and turned up with a hand pointer
by a competent workman. The bevel is
very important. Where the edges of the
venient to use staves all of the same width.
They may be from six to nine inches wide,
but they must come in pairs or sets of
three of the same width together. Where
staves are used of different widths the
system of numbering shown in the draw-
ih
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S u cznmT ro u NDATioN
CROSS SECTION Of SILO
staves come together the joint should be
perfect from insid'^ to outside and from
top to bottom of the silo.
It very often happens that it is not con-
ing will be found very useful. Staves are
all cut to size and length and numbered,
they can then be loaded on a wagon and
hauled to the building site and laid out on
the ground in proper order. There will
be about seventy-five eight inch staves in
a silo sixteen feet in diameter. The door
frame takes up about three feet of the
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IN A SILO Ifc'-O"
A T" STAVES
INSIDE DIAHETER
circle. In making the door frame ladder
use the best material you can get and have
it framed square and solid with good jambs
well fitted for the inside door panel to
shut against. It is almost impossible to
make a silo door tight enough.
The doors in this plan are built like re
frigerator doors. They are put on and
IRON TOtaCUE
held in place by lag screws turned into
the timber. The outside boarding of the
doors is double to make a firm hold for
the lag screws. It is a slower job to put
the doors on when they are fastened this
way, but it is only necessary to change
them twice a year.
A hoop passes around the silo between
each door. These hoops are made in sec-
BARN PLANS
III
tions, each length about sixteen feet six hole a foot thick at the bottom and nine
inches long, as this allows for the lap and inches at the top and five feet high. A
the take up of the threads at the yokes, twelve inch bottom is put in at the same
'^^hc^)(.H NAILED"— v^/V At
DO O R
SECTION
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ELEVATION -'•DOOR
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FRONT ELEVATION
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ELEVATION OV
DOOR FRAME
There is a cast iron yoke at each meeting time so that the pit when finished is four
of the hoops as shown in the detail draw- feet deep and fifteen feet eight inches in
ing. diameter in the clear. The walls are nine
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STAVES WUMBERED
The bottom of the silo is made of ce-
ment. A round hole is dug seventeen
feet eight inches in diameter. A cement
wall is built around the outside of this
-- LETTERED
inches thick on top.
In starting the woodwork, first set up
the ladder door frame on the center of
the cement wall. Make it plumb and stay-
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
lath it in place and put on plenty of braces
so it can't move. Then set up the staves
starting at one side of the ladder with
number one. Set the staves on end on
the center of the wall or a little outside
of the center. This is important because
when you commence to tighten the hoops
the staves must draw in and you want
about two inches of wall on the inside af-
ter the staves are drawn tight. You
shouldn't have more than two inches be-
cause you don't want a shelf at the top of
the wall to prevent the silage from set-
'tling.
It will be noticed that the hoops are
placed much closer together at the bot-
tom than they are further up. It seems
more difficult to keep a silo tight at the
bottom, there is more pressure on it.
When the sides are up and the hoops made
tight the bottom should be finished all
around both inside and out with rings of
cement where the wooden staves meet the **
cement wall. Make this joint water tight
if you possibly can. Very often the juice
from the corn will fill the pit and run over.
Keep the liquid in if you possibly can.
The roof of the silo should be light and
removable. You can't fill a silo full unless
you have boards to set up to reach a few
feet above the top. It will settle sometimes
as much as ten feet. It is an advantage to
take the top all off and to have boards six
or eight feet long set up around the top
temporarily and fill to the top of these
extra boards. It will settle enough then.
Where the ends of the staves meet make
a saw-cut an inch deep. Have pieces of
two inch hoop iron cut just long enough
to reach the width of the staves and use
them for iron tongues to match the ends
of the staves together.
An Eu,^lish Barn — A99
Small artistic stables are more common
in England than they are in the United
States, possibly 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 car'-iage house and
stable.
Some of these carriage 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 they have very
neat stables just the right size and that
they appear modestl)'^ 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
BARN PLANS
113
keep just as far away from straight lines
as they possibly can. Somebody discov-
ered in the time of King Alfred that curved
paths and roadways in gardens were prop-
er. Some of the old enthusiasts went a
step too far and got them crooked. This
was frowned upon for a century or two
until succeeding generations pulled some
of the kinks out by injecting a few lib-
eral doses of English conservatism so that
now after a good many generations the
driveway from the lane through the back
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RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
of the lot to the stable is gently curved.
The stable also is partially screened from
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 any rate we
haven't any time or money now to change
things or even level of¥ 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
ofif 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 hunsr to a wire overhead.
A Duck House— A98
A house designed for the housing of
thoroughbred ducks is given in plan
(A98). It is built up from the gromid on
cedar posts set on blocks to prevent set-
tling. The idea is to have a damp proof
house with the best possible ventilation.
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 unnecessary. 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 unnec-
essary amount of cold air.
This style of 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 necessarv 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 were accustomed to.
BARN PLANS
"5
ii6
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
Feed Lots for Beef Cattle--A184
Where cattle arc fed in large numbers
it pays and pays well to fit up properly for
the business. In the corn belt, buying
thrifty young cattle and finishing them
for the market, is a splendid business in
the hands of men who understand how to
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CROSS SECTION
OF CAR
buy, how to feed and Imw 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 (A1234) 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
CROSS SECTION
OF CORN CRIB
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 a mile holding the same order.
It works bettor if the ground is about
BARN PLANS
117
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RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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
enough to hold something. He runs a
chute from the silo to the car which saves
forking the silage up from the floor until
the silo is nearly empty. The sides of the
car are hinged so they drop down over the
feeding racks in the yards. He loads the
car quickly and easily and a good deal of
the stufif unloads itself. The track is made
in sixteen foot sections, as the yards are
thirty-two feet wide the tracks have one
support in the middle of the yard. The
other supports form part of the fences be-
tw-een the yards.
In laying out thr; yards the problem of
DETAIL OF
make quite a load, but one man can move
it if the wheels are large and kept well
oiled and if the track is level and true.
Some feeding yards have an inclined 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 refdled. 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
arc 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 it started.
One man with a rig like th.is that works
right should feed a large bunch of cattle
because he can take advantage of his work.
In the first place he has got a car big
b CINDERS
BRICK PAVEMENT
drainage must be worked out first. It is
impossible to have the yards dry unless
ample provision is made for taking care
of the rainfall. A drain tile is marked on
the plan leading from the corner of the
storage barn and running across the ends
of the feeding pens down the whole length
of the alley to an outlet in the field be-
yond. The brick pavement in each feed
lot slopes to the center to lead the water
to the tile drain underneath which con-
nects with the trunk line of tile near the
fence in the alley. This main drain in-
creases in size to accommodate the extra
drainage as it proceeds past the different
pens.
An open shed twelve by thirty-two feet
occupies one end of each yard. This shed
is not paved but is kept well bedded. All
the rest of the yard is paved with brick
laid flat on a cinder bed.
An additional drain tile runs from each
water tank to the trunk tile line to take
care of any overflow from the tank. In
some locations anotlu^r tile drain will be
BARN PLANS
119
I20
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
necessary at the back of the shed because
the ground must be kept dry.
Water Supply.
Good fresh water in sufficient quantity
to supply the needs of the cattle in these
feed lots is quite a problem in itself. The
water must be good and there must be
plenty of it. It must also be supplied under
pressure and carried to each water tank in
pipes placed under ground below frost.
There must be a valve placed in each pipe
running to each water tank so constructed
that it won't freeze. The stems from these
valves should be extended up to the over-
head track so a man can walk from one end
of the feeding yards to the other and reg-
ulate the water easily and quickly.
Generally the water must be supplied
by a windmill and a reservoir of some
kind. A cement basin in a nearby hillside
is perhaps the most satisfactory because
when once made it is permanent. The
source must be sufficient to supply it and
the windmill or other power which does
the pumping must be powerful enough to
do the work at all times. You cannot af-
ford to take chances on a water famine
with several hundreds of feeding cattle
on your hands.
Storage bam.
In the plan not much attention is paid
to the storage barn except that it shows
the most convenient location. Every feed-
er must plan storage to suit his way of do-
ing business. If he has a large farm on
which he grows alfalfa, grain and othe-
crops that make large quantities of rough-
age he must provide an extensive storage
barn with appliances to get the stuff in and
out again when needed for feeding.
Generally speaking, the barn should be
large and high. The capacity of a storage
barn is increased by additional height at
a very rapid ratio because all kinds of loose
fodder packs very close in the bottom and
lies very loose at the top. A deep bay may
l)e i'lllcd to the peak with hay at haying
lime and settle sufliciently to hold a large
quantity of sheaf wheat a few weeks later,
but a shallow mow don't hold much at any
time. It don't have the weight sufficient
to pack it.
There will, of course, be a good solid
floor over the car <-rack and there will be
chutes or openings to let the hay down di-
rectly into the car and there will be a lad-
der to let a man down into the car to tramp
it full. The same horse fork that is used
to put the fodder in will move the stufT
from the other parts of the barn to this
floor as it is needed.
Brick Pavement.
There is only one way to have a feeding
lot clean and that is to pave it. There are
dilTerent kinds of pavements more or less
virtuous but the cheapest satisfactory bot-
tom for a feeding yard is brick laid on a
foundation of sand and cinders. The cin-
ders help drainage and prevent the bricks
heaving with the frost. It is easier to lay
the bricks level and smooth if an inch or
two of sharp sand is scattered over the top
of the cinders. The sand holds the bricks
in place and a little sand does not prevent
the water from ge:ting away.
A great deal depends on the foundation
The ground should be graded with the
proper slope to the center gutter. It is not
necessary to have an opening in the bricks,
the cracks between the bricks are suffici-
ent, but a line of tile should be carefully
laid underneath deep enough to be out of
the way of frost. Frost does not penetrate
deep in a feeding yard under a brick pave-
ment. During some winters the ground
won't freeze. There is more or less litter
scattered about that prevents hard freez-
ing. Probably if the tile starts n foot be-
ow the brick at the shed end and deepens
o two and one-half feet where it joins the
runk tile in the allev the drain will give
lo trouble.
BARN PLANS
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RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
Lav the tile first smoothly and evenly
and cover the joints with pieces of broken
tile, then fill in with coarse cinders using
no earth over the tile. Tile in a mud-bot-
tom barn yard seldom works satisfactorily
because the tramping of the cattle packs
the mud so that the water can't get
through. A mud-bottom yard has never
been drained and the chances are that such
a yard never will be drained in a satisfac-
tory manner.
Commence laying the brick in the center
over the tile and work both ways to the
fences. The herring bone style of laying
brick gives the best satisfaction. No two
brick tip alike when laid like this. Of
course you want every brick to lay flat and
level, but you don't always get just wliat
you want. If good hard burned bricks are
laid flat, herring bone style on a good
foundation you will have more comfort
and satisfaction than you ever had in a
feeding lot before. If you have lots of
money to use and don't care for expense
then put in a cement pavement and build
it just the same as sidewalks are built.
You will then have a yard that will last a
life time, but it won't be as dry as the brick
because the water must all run to the end
or center outlet on top of the pavement
before it can get away.
The Shed.
A continuous shed is designed to run
the whole length of the feeding plant with-
out a break. The shed is twelve feet wide
and eight feet high in front and six feet
six inches high at the back. The shed faces
the south and the front is left open to ad-
mit sunshine. The construction is light
and cheap as shown in the detail drawing
There are no partitions except the fences
between pens which run to the back of the
shed, in fact the fence posts and shed posts
are the same.
Two bv six rafters fourteen feet long are
used for the roof. These are covered with
sheathing boards, dressed one side, and
on this is stretched a good quality of felt
roofing. The north side is banked with
cinders to prevent the cold winds from
blowing under and the ground floor of the
shed slopes to the brick pavement. A lib-
eral supply of straw for bedding is kept
in the shed and this is carefully shaken
up every day.
Feeders now-a-days appreciate the im-
portance of making animals comfortable.
It takes a good deal of feed to supply the
heat dissipated by animals lying on the
cold ground. Straw is cheaper than corn.
Beef cattle don't require much protec-
tion against the cold. Their thick winter
hair and hides are sufificient if they are
kept dry and well fed. Cattle will gain a
little faster on the same amount of feed if
kept warmly stabled, but they must have
fresh air and the extra expense of individ-
ual attention when handling them in a
stable more than eats up the additional
profits from the extra gains made. A feed-
ing rack well up above the ground along
the Ijack of the shed is a good thing at
times in rainy weather; it induces the cat-
tle to stay inside. It is better to put the
feeding racks on the ground when you use
them regularly every day, but ground
space in the shed is limited and such racks
will be used occasionally only. For this
reason it is not desirable to take up any
more ground space than necesary for this
purpose.
Corn Crib
On the south side of the alley way is
a corn crib six feet wide at the bottom,
eight feet wide at the top, ten feet high
above the foundation uosts and as long as
necessary to have an opening in the bricks,
necesary. This crib is intended for stor-
age purposes to hold corn enough to last
all winter. There is a door in the end
BARN PLANS
123
and doors along the alley side thirty-two
feet apart, each door being opposite the
door of a feeder crib. A temporary bridge
reaches from one door to the other so the
carrying may be done with a wheelbar-
row or car running on a track. As the
bridge is intended to be moved from feeder
crib to the next a wheelbarrow would be
handier than a car because it is lighter
and may be easily moved.
Feeder Cribs.
Between each two pens is a feeder crib
six feet wide at the bottom, eight feet wide
at the top and eight feet high These
cribs are forty feet long extending back
from the alley fence. This gives forty
lineal feet of corn trough for each feeding
yard. These feeding troughs are made
by extending two by four floor cross joists
two feet beyond the sills at each side. The
floor in the crib is laid on top of these cross
joists and the feeder boxes are made by
boarding on the under side and across the
ends. This makes the floor of the feeder
trough about five inches lower than the
floor of the crib which permits the corn to
work out easily and in case of a driving
storm the water does not run in from the
feed troughs to wet the crib floor.
Some little experimenting is necesary to
get the opening the right size. A smaller
opening answers when the trough is lower
than the corn floor. A narrow strip may
be nailed in the opening at the top if it is
found too large.
The roofs of these feeder cribs are made
by using sixteen foot boards full length.
The projection keeps the feeder troughs
dry and provides a little shelter for the an-
imals when feeding. For the comfort of
the cattle it is a good plan to. run eave
troughs the whole length of these roofs.
The water could be carried to the water
tanks or the drain in the alley.
At corn harvest time these feeder cribs
of course would be filled first with the ear-
liest and best seasoned corn to feed first.
The later and poorer quality of corn would
be housed in the main storage crib.
It is not every feeder of beef cattle who
approves of self feeder cribs, but if they
don't like to have the animals help them-
selves the same cribs and the same troughs
will be just as useful, so that the man who
really loves to work may dig the corn out,
load it in a basket and carry it around to
the side of the crib and distribute it along
the troughs. It will pay some men to do
this, men who are built that way. Each
man must work in his own harness.
Silos.
For some unaccountable reason beef
men have entertained a prejudice against
silos. But not every man who feeds cat-
tle without their assistance objects to si-
los. In many cases they have more corn
stalks than they can feed without trying
to save the last vestige of the corn crop
and they think the animals can cut the feed
and mow it away cheaper than it can be
done by machinery, but the fact remains
that nearly one-half of the feeding value
of the corn crop is in the stalks and leaves
of the corn plant. If cut just at the right
time, when the sap is all in the stalk, cut
up fine and packed away in an airtight silo
the stalks loose very little of their feed-
ing value. They may be kept a year and
the last silage from the bottom comes out
as fresh and apparently as palatable as
the first. Cattle will even leave pasture
in the summer time to eat left over silage.
If we ask the animals what they think of
it their actions are strongly in the affirma-
tive. We must study these things in detail
to thoroughly understand our business.
Looking at the silo problem from the
broadest side it certainly would pay to put
some of the crop in silos. The stalks from
eight or ten acres will fill a sixteen by thir-
124
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
tv-two foot silo so that most feeders would
only have an opportunity to cut off one
side of the corn crop and they would still
have a large quantity of stalks to go to
waste.
The silos in the plan are made of two
by eight pine planks dressed both sides, the
edges beveled and put together like a tub.
They are hooped with three-quarter inch
round iron hoops drawn up with nuts
against the shoulders of cast iron plates
as shown in the detail drawing on another
page.
This feeding plant is designed to save
labor and to utilize feed to the best possi-
ble advantage. It would be difficult to
build a large plant any cheaper and have
it satisfactory. It would also be difficult
to build, on any other plan, a thoroughly
practical plant that could be extended in-
definitely as the business grows without
altering or rebuilding.
An Ohio Barn — A146
A style of barn that is very much used
in Ohio is shown in plan (A146). A pecul-
iarity of this style of barn is what is com-
monly termed a double threshing floor.
In some of the larger ones the threshing
machine is set first on one side and then
on the other for convenience in getting
the grain to the machine. The bridge
from the bank to the second floor must be
stronger than common barn bridges be-
cause it spans the space between the barn
and the bank and it leaves a runway for
cattle along the bank side of the building.
In this plan the cows have no stalls but
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BARN PLANS
125
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
hardlv freeze in here.
may all have different quarters and be kept
separate ver}^ 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 hillv
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There are many points of convenience
about a barn built after this plan, one of
which is the facility for getting all around
it. Gates, fences and retaining walls for
the bank offer opportunities for stock pens
in almost every corner without interfering
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
farm in southern Ohio on a site some dis-
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
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.
126
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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
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
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the spring entered the tops of both tanks
in a similar way. Two valves in the cross
pipe permitted to water to flow into either
tank or both tanks as desired.
This arrangement of feed and outlet
pipes made provision for emptying and
cleaning either tank at any time without
interfering with the water supply because
the other tank could be continued in use.
In practice it was found desirable to clean
both tanks twice each year because if left
and cast iron buckets in convenient places
about the stable and nearby pasture lots.
Besides supplying the stock an inch pipe
was carried under ground to the house,
which was in this way supplied with hot
and cold running water in the kitchen sink
and bath room. There was also an outside
hose tap for sprinkling the lawn and wat-
ering the flower beds. Another hose cock
in the carriage house supplied a hose brush
for washing buggies.
BARN PLANS
127
It might be noted that help stayed along
on the farm year after year. One man
grew up on the place from a chore-boy
and only left to get married and work on
a farm of his own. Farm hands are quick
to appreciate modern improvements.
Farmers who plan right can keep help and
make money from their work.
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Well Planned Horse Barn— A171
We are herewith illustrating a horse
barn and in addition to a few words about
its utility we will explain its construction,
which, we trust, will be of interest to the
readers. To make this article more com-
prehensiye to those interested in barn con-
struction we show an exact reproduction
of the architectural plans after which the
building was erected.
This building is designed to accommo-
date fourteen horses, haying ten single
stalls and four box stalls, and all the nec-
essary feed bins, harness room, wash
room, grain room, carriage room, storage
rooms, etc.
The carriage room, which is 30 by 36
feet clear span without posts, is on the east
end and has an entrance of large double
sliding doors, and also a large sliding door
to the horse stable. The carriage room
floor contains a carriage wash near its
center and overhead is a large trap door,
so any vehicles which are out of use can be
hoisted up to the floor above for storage.
128
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
The carriage room also has direct doors tions between all stalls have wire grills
to the harness washing room. The harness running up to a height of about 7 feet above
room is equipped with dust proof cases for the floor, thus obtaining a free circulation
ihc harness, blankets, etc., and the wash- of light and air. Each stall is equipped
ino- room contains a sink with soft water with a window that is hinged on top and
supply and all the necessary fixtures re- swinging out. This provides each animal
quired for the washing and --epairing of with fresh air and a direct draft upon the
the harness. animal is avoided by these windows be-
The stable room contains a watering ing placed up near the ceiling, also being
trough, a store room for tools, shovels, covered with a wire screen for protection,
etc., and a grain room for the mixing of All stalls have cast iron feed boxes, salt
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feed, and which has small grain bins which boxes and wrought iron hay racks con-
arc connected with spouts from the larger nected directly with hay chutes from the
bins on the upper floor. hay room above. All stall floors are slight-
Thc box stalls have sliding doors with ly sloped to the back and there connected
a wire grill in the top halt, and the parti- with a cast iron drain trough running the
BARN PLANS
129
full length of and on each side of the drive-
way. .
In the ceiling of this driveway is a large
trap door for throwing down hay and bed-
ding, and also for the hoisting of hay from
of hay, bedding, grain and feed, and the
room above the carriage room is partition-
ed off into a dust-proof room for the stor-
age of vehicles, etc.
This building is built on a foundation of
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
provided with trap doors by which the
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
stable. It is built, as will be seen in the
detail above the longitudinal section, by
flow of air can be regulated as desired,
and this shaft at the same time serving for
a hay and bedding chute.
The second story is used for the storage
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 2 by 2 inch strips are nailed
I30
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
one over each joist. The space between
these strips is filled with mineral wool,
then this entire surface is floored with a
strong floor 1^4 inches thick, and on this
6 inch braces. The outside walls are form-
ed by filling in between these bent^ with
2 by 6 inch studding spaced 2 feet on cen-
ters and well spiked to the floor joist, sills
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
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 with yel-
low pine beaded ceiling.
A Servicable Barn — A172
We are here illustrating a small barn,
which is 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 single door to the
horse stable, and a stairway leading to the
upper floor, which is for the storage of
hay, feed, etc., and will admit the installa-
tion of 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 is 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-
vided with a floor drain. This will admit
the carriages to be washed any place in
the room without injury to the floor and
BARN PLANS
131
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
when laid the boards will fit tightly to-
gether at the bottom and leaving about an
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
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hard oil. This makes a very pretty effect
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
with hot tar. The upper floor is then laid
and has slightly beveled edges, so that
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.
A Canadian Barn — A183
We are here illustrating a large stock
and dairy barn which has been designed
for a large Canadian farm and has man}'
good features worth noting, both from
the builder's and the dairyman's point of
view.
The shape of the building was develop-
ed 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 ofif 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 unnecessary
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
and depth of the wall and then the con-
crete is dumped and tamped into the
trench, thus avoiding the work and ex-
pense of planking for concrete forms be-
low grade. Above grade the concrete is
tamped between planks well fastened in
132
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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134 RADFORD'S
place in the usual manner The concrete
wall extends up to the floor level where
the wood construction begins. The space
between the studding from the floor up to
the window sill level is also filled with
concrete after the walls have been sided
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
PRACTICAL
elevator boot for loading grain into the
bins.
This granary being located near the
center of the barn is very convenient for
feeding the stock and adds to the exterior
appearance of the building. The basement
of the granary is used for the storage of
roots for the stock and can be equipped
with a kettle for boiling and mi.xing foods,
etc.
The cow barn contains 57 cow stalls and
arranged with a feed alley running
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 stifi^en 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
barn goes through this granary and con-
tains a combination dumping scales with
a hopper imder the floor spouted to the
through the entire length with the man-
gers on either side, so the cattle can be
conveniently fed from a truck or a trolley
track system suspended from the ceiling.
The cows stand facing each other and the
mangers are continuous, constructed out
of concrete which forms part of the cement
floor. The stall floors are of concrete cov-
ered with plank, which can be taken up
and cleaned or renewed when desired.
The manure gutters have sufficient fall to
drain all liquids to one outlet in the center
which is connected with a catch-basin, and
also contains gate valves so arranged that
while scrubbing the water can be switch-
ed into a sewer. The passages back of
the cows are of good width for milking
and bedding the stock and trucking out
manure to platforms built at the end of
each passage outside of the building. The
ventilation is well taken care of bv ducts
BARN PLANS
135
in the walls which carry the air to the
ventilators on the roof.
The young stock barn is located to the
west of the cow barn and contains six box
stalls for bulls and calves. These stalls
are constructed from heavy wrought iron
gas pipe, having three-inch pipes for cor-
ner posts and for top or header rail, and
ii^-inch pipe spaced 6 inches apart for the
stall partitions ; these pipes are set up-
right with the bottom ends well bedded
in the concrete floor and the upper ends
screwed into the 3-inch header. The gates
are also of pipe construction and have self-
closing locks and hinges.
There are 28 single stalls with swinging
stanchions for calves, one-year-olds, and
dry stock similar in arrangement to the
stalls of the milk cows only not so wide,
as no milking room is necessary.
The wing also contains a hospital stall
which is isolated from all others by solid
walls and has all side walls, floor and ceil-
ing finished with cement which is imper-
vious to moisture and can be readily dis-
infected. Opposite the hospital stall is a
watchman's room for a man who can at-
tend any sick stock during the night.
The silos are centrally located for con-
venience in feeding and filling, as the sil-
age cutter can be located in the central
feeding room and thus be operated in all
kinds of weather during the ensilage sea-
son. The silos are constructed of stud-
ding spaced 12 inches on centers, sheathed
on the inside with two thicknesses of 1 1/2-
inch by 6 inch sheathing bent around hori-
zontal and then veneered on the inside
with hard, vitreous paving brick laid in
cement mortar, each brick being tightly
pressed against the sheathing so that the
silage pressure can not force it out of
place. The exterior of each silo is finished
to match the balance of the building. The
silos have a concrete foundation which is
flush on the inside with the face of brick
lining, and being excavated down to the
footing increases its capacity by about 50
tons. The floors are of concrete, dished
to the center, and connected with a deep
seal trap and drain.
. South of the silos is the horse barn,
which contains 17 single stalls on one side
and 9 single and 4 box stalls on the other
side, giving it a capacity of thirty horses.
Each stall has an outside window for light
and ventilation. These windows are
about seven feet from the floor to avoid
draft on the animals, and protected by a
wire mesh guard. The stall partitions
are of wood to a height of 5 feet 6 inches,
above which there are wire mesh guards,
giving a good circulation of air and light.
The stall floors are of double thickness of
i^ inch by 6 inch flooring with several
thicknesses of roofing felt laid in hot
tar between. All stall floors are slightly
sloped down towards the driveway and
have cast iron gutters with perforated cast
iron covers and connected with catch-basin
and sewer.
East of the horse barn is the chicken
house, having a capacity of 350 fowls, di-
vided into seven compartments of 50 each,,
so arranged that the chickens get the
south sun and protected from the cold
north winds.
East of the horse barn is the shed for
wagons and farming implements with a
door into the horse stable, so the team can
be taken directly from the stable into the
shed and hitched up without having to go
through a barn yard.
There are many other conveniences
about this building, but we must refrain
in this article for lack of space. Suffice it,
therefore, to conclude in stating that the
building is so constructed that any depart-
ment of the same can at any future time
be extended or added to.
136
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
A Cement Rough Cast Barn — A182
A carriage house and stable plastered
on the outside with cement inortar 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
New Orleans, La., such carriage houses
barns are provided in this building, but it
is a little more elaborate than ordinary.
The box stalls are especially large and
roomy, there is a larger feed room than
is customary and the harness room is a
little larger than we usually find in a small
or medium sized stable. But the especial
features about the building are the rooms
for servants with an entrance separate
7VK>/vr- T^CE^^T/O/^
are quite common. There is a great deal from the carriage house, and the laundry
of made ground and the sewers are not with its hot water heating apparatus,
deep enough to permit much underground which not only furnishes hot water for
building, so that basement laundries are washing and for stable use, but to warm
not common. To meet just such condi- the stables and the servants' rooms in win-
tions stables with laundry rooms just ter. This laundry room is also large
seem to fill the bill, especially when they enough to hold the clothes lines in stormy
are well designed and built to suit indi- weather, and there are plenty of windows
vidual needs. for light.
This building is substantial in appear- Laundry work is a problem in the south
ance and the manner of construction is as well as in the north. Those who get
very satisfactory for a warm climate. The along with the least friction usually have
outside cement work when properly put the best possible conveniences for doing
on with metal lath is very durable. It the work. Large light laundry rooms
looks well and is not expensive. supplied with plenty of hot water and fur-
The usual conveniences found in small nished with good machinery and tubs that
BARN PLANS
137
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138
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
are rightly placed and fitted with the nee- For a pretentious property a stable
essary faucets, waste pipes, etc., offer more building of this size and design looks well,
inducements to do good work and less oc- The building is large enough to match up
casion for complaints than ordinary. well with a good big residence and the de-
There are many advantages in having sign and style of the roof shows character
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the laundry room away from the house, enough for a house, in fact many costly
It avoids confusion in the house on wash houses are built with roofs that are less
days and the odors of dirty steam and attractive than this one. A carriage house
soapy water are done away with. like this is n'ot complete without a good
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BARN PLANS
139
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
r.oyal 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.
Hexagonal Poultry House — A174
The house shown is in the shape of a
hexagon and makes a very handsome and
convenient house, and is just the thing
for the city lot, where space is limited. The
Et-E-V/ATIOH.
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
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 ^n abundance of sun-
light to enter the building in the morn-
ing-, when it is most needed.
In nearly all the plans given it is de-
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
house having earth or wooden floor?..
Wooden floors should not be used if they
can be avoided.
A Pretentious Stock Barn — A179
This pretentious stock barn is very com-
plete and of an elastic pattern, so designed
that its capacity can be increased by build-
ing on to the gable ends and extending
them out any distance that may be re-
quired without afifecting the general ar-
rangement or exterior architectural pro-
portions in the least. The two wings to
the right and left of the silo contain the
young stock and horses respectively and
face the south. These two wings form a
sort of court around the silo, admitting
the sun, but obstructing the severe storms
and giving shelter to the stock. The silo
140
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
is well situated with reference to feeding, two by six studding covered with tar paper
being in tlie middle of the cow barn. The and drop siding on the outside and tar
cows stand back to back, which is of great paper and matched sheathing on the in-
advantage in cleaning, out the gutters, as side.
all the dirt can be handled from the center The lower story has two rows of posts
driveway and carried to the manure pits which support the upper floor and also
^OUTH rLEVAH'ION CF ^TOCK BAKN
to the right. To the left hand or west end
of the cow barn is a large room for imple-
ments, wagons, harness cases and stair-
ways to upper floor which contains grain
bins, storage rooms for light machines,
vehicles, etc., and sufficient hay and feed
room for all stock.
serve to hold the stanchions and stall par-
titions. The upper story ia of a single
span, braced roof which allows the free
use of a trolley hay fork the full length of
the building.
The roof is of green stained shingles,
of Dutch colonial architecture, and not
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M I I I i I I Mil I I I M II I I
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This building has a concrete foundation
with the concrete walls extending about
2 feet above the cement floor level in the
stock rooms. This prevents any moisture
from getting to the framework and also
makes a very sanitary and durable build-
ing. The frame walls are constructed of
(ET
[E
only of a very appropriate design, but its
shape adds greatly to the storage capacity
of hay, grain, etc.
There is an embankment driveway on
the north side which admits hay wagons
into the upper floor for the unloading of
hay, grain, etc. This silo is of frame con-
BARN PLANS
141
struction lined on the inside with paving the lower story, which simplifies the feed-
brick, making it absolutely air tight and ing. The~ building, as the cut shows it,
almost frost proof. There is a trolley will accommodate 100 head of cattle and
track feed carrier hung to the ceiling of nine horses.
A Gothic Barn — A181
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
entirelv different lines. If the house is
There is too little originality in build-
ing. It is much easier to follow the local
trend than it is to think out a plan that is
suitable for individual needs. In offering
this barn plan it is with the idea that there
Dn^/Q/\^ rOR A^MALL QAP/V WITH FOUR 3TALL^
new and the other buildings old there is are many locations where the style of
some excuse for such incongruity, but in building and the shape of the roof will
most cases the house is built first and the match the house and other surroundings
barn is added to the lot some years after- better than any other plan,
wards. In the meantime some architec- A roof like this is not economical to
tural fad has taken possession of the build if the owner is influenced especially
neighborhood and every building erected by dollars and cents, but there is a style
must bear the marks of the new fashion. about it that shows up well for the amount
142
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
of money it costs. There is a great deal
in appearance. When we have things
right we have something to appreciate for
a long time to come. If the house has a
steep roof we can not 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 well back out of the way- and hav-
Ihing; 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
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
r/R-^T TLOOH PAA/\f
ing it covered vvitii vines or screened in
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
homogeneous whole or it shows at once
that it has not been arranged rightly. A
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
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
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 a 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
BARN PLANS
143
other and may be easily locked shut. It
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.
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.
A Model Dairy Building— A18()
We are here illustrating a dairy build-
ing which is very complete and answers
all the requirements for a country dairy.
It has waterworks, power and electric
light plant of sufficient capacity to supply
heat, water, light and power for the vari-
ous purposes required on a large dairy and
stock farm. The building consists of three
foundation, above which it is of the regu-
lar balloon frame construction. The walls
are of two-inch by six-inch studding
sheathed on the outside with matched
sheathing, then papered and covered with
drop siding. The space between the stud-
ding of the dairy and wash rooms from
the floor to the window sills is filled with
/rr ^/o^^E-
DAiP-y
parts; the left hand wing is the ice storage
house and also contains two cold storage
rooms for butter, cream, milk, etc. ; the
central part is the dairy containing the
churn room, bottling room, washing room,
etc., and the right wing is the power and
pumping station.
This building is built on a concrete
/&>V2-/r MOU^iE.
concrete and then cemented on the inside
forming a cement wainscoting as well as
strengthening the building. Above this
cement work the side walls and ceiling are
ceiled with beaded yellow pine ceiling.
The roof is of moss green stained shingles
and has large ventilators, which makes it
hygienic and adds to the appearance.
144
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
The ice house is insulated with several
thicknesses of hair felt, air spaces and
matched sheathing and insulating, water-
proof paper.
The power house has a basement which
contains the boilers, which are sunk below
the ground level in order to admit steam
pipes to be run underground to the other
farm buildings for heating purposes. The
pumps and dynamo are run by an engine.
JW T0UZT noa/^
cr^o(jA/D 7^Moo?f p/,/i/y /^r Zi4//^y
A Practical Silo — A175
We are indebted for the following plans of farm
buildings to G. W. Ashby, Architect, who is recognized
as one of the leading architects along this line in the
country.
We illustrate the construction of silos,
which are built of concrete, wood and
l)rick so as to unite strength and durabil-
ity to an artistic outline.
The accompanying illustrations show
the exterior during the course of construc-
tion showing the arrangement of the stud-
ding, hoops and doors.
The foundation walls arc constructed
out of concrete two feet in thickness and
running down below the frost line, where
they rest on a ten-inch by thirty-two-inch
concrete footing course to avoid settling.
This concrete work is composed of one
part Portland cement, three parts santl
and four parts crushed stone, and is re
inforced with a five-eighths-inch iron hoop
to prevent the walls from spreading. There
are anchor bolts bedded in the concrete
with which the wooden sill is bolted solid
on to the concrete foundation.
The area inside the foundation is exca-
vated down to the footing course in order
to increase the capacity, and has a concrete
floor slightly pitched to the center
Frost may not do great damage to the
silage as far as its food qualities are con-
cerned, but if frozen into a solid mass it is
very difficult to handle and should there-
fore be to some extent protected against
heavy frost. Hence wood construction
with dead air spaces between the studding
and heavy building paper between the
BARN PLANS
145
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146
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
sheathing has been selected as the most ence has proven that the acids in the silage
practical construction. are very detrimental to the cement caus-
Silage is very heavy and creates a great ing it to chalk and crumble away so that
pressure against the walls, similar to water
in a tank, and to prevent this pressure
from bulging out the walls the silo has
been built in the shape of a cylinder. The
sheathing boards on the inside and out-
side surface of the studding have lieen re-
sawed to one-half-inch thickness out of
one-and-one-eighth-inch hoards so that it
can without difficulty be lient around the
wall and securely nailed in place, thus
breaking the joints as to form a contin-
uous series of hoops.
To properly preserve the silage it is nec-
essary to exclude the air, hence the walls
must be perfectly air tight. This is fre-
quently accomplished by lathing and plas-
tering the interior surface of the silo with
cement mortar, which makes a very hard
and air tight surface. However, experi-
it becomes necessary to re-coat the sur-
face with cement every few years. For
this reason, in place of cement plastering,
the inside surface has been veneered with
vitreous paving brick, which do not absorb
moisture and are proof against the action
of acid. These bricks are laid tight against
the sheathing surface so the pressure can-
not change their position and laid in a thin
bed of cement mortar not exposing any
more mortar to the surface than is neces-
sary to properly bond the brick together.
The exterior surface is composed of
dressed and matched narrow flooring
vertically to the outer hoops. About *^en
feet above the ground there is a shingled
belt for exterior effect. The roof is of
shingles and has a wide projecting cor-
nice.
A Model Chicken House— Al 73
This building is 68 feet long and t6
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
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
criticism. We will, therefore, not lay
stress on any one particular feature of
this building but will say that several dif-
ferent ideas have been used which may be
explained as follows:
Rooms Nos. i and 2 (see floor plan) are
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
used together; room i being the scratch- are rooms 4. 5 and 6. In this scheme, the
ing room which is used in stormy and win- nest room, 4, is separated from the roost
ter weather for exercise, and room No. 2 room, 6, one being to the west and the
is the feed, nest and roost room. other to the east of the scratching rooms.
v^
T^OCiM A/O. i
oo?Wp
pi-
^rCT/O/^ THROUGH
^^CTIOM THHOUGH
noOM A/O. e
D^^/QN
NORTH ^IDE ELnVATIOr^
or CmCKEN tiOUSEl
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
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,
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 arc 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 circula-
tion 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.
Power House for a Farm — A 177
The power house here shown gives shel-
ter to the various mechanisms which fur-
nishes the power, light, water and heat to
the diff'erent buildings of the farm and
thus becomes one of the most important
buildings. Its engine room is equipped
with a powerful Westinghouse, three cyl-
inder, gas engine which supplies power for
pumping water and generating electricity
for light and power for the various small
machines such as cream separator, churn,
ensilage cutter, grain elevator, ice hoist
and for many other purposes about the
farm.
The various electric circuits are con-
trolled by a modern marble switchboard,
from which the wires run up to the venti-
lator on the roof of the building and from
thence to the different buildings, supplying
them with incandescent light and power.
The pumping apparatus supplies water
from a deep driven well to two large pneu-
matic pressure storage tanks. The soft
water supply is pumped from large cis-
m
xc
- — - -i-rT-sra^l-E . iL.
BARN PLANS
149
terns with a total capacity of 700 barrels
into another pneumatic storage tank; the
three tanks supply the various buildings
with cold, hard and soft water, having a
pressure of about 80 pounds per square
inch and a capacity of 27,000 gallons.
The boiler room is of fireproof construc-
tion, having stone walls and a ceiling of
book tile laid on steel T bars, bedded in
cement; this ceiling also forms the roof
which is of asphalt and gravel. The boiler
room is built partly below ground so that
the steam return pipes from the various
buildings will slope back to the boilers.
-5E"C7"/0/sy ^3/-/OW//VG ^/^^^/VI/AVG O^ ;=OWS« /VOUAEU
I50
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
Both boilers are of the high pressure, fire- tain hard and soft water, hot and cold
box type; the large one is of sufficient ca- water and steam supply and return pipes,
pacity to heat all the buildings in the cold- Between the boiler room and engine room
est weather and the smaller to furnish is the toilet and wash room for the em-
&A5EMENT PLAN CF PCWER H0U5E:
high pressure steam at all times for the
sterilizing oven, creamery, laundry and
other purposes.
This building is connected to the other
buildings with a network of pipes run
through underground conduits which con-
Tinyr TLooR PLA/v or fc//er hou^e.
ployees of the farm. Under this wash
room and under part of the engine room
is a large'basemcnt for coal and fuel. The
exterior of this building is very pretty and
from an architectural point of view it is
in harmonv with the other buildings.
Model Dairy Barn — A 176
We illustrate herewith a dairy building brought from the west door of the cow
which is located directly west of the cow barn directly to the receiving vat in the
barn and so arranged that the milk can be dairy building. The milk cans are unload-
BARN PLANS
151
BQ
□
n
\ / - \ T
E>UTTEn
SrCmM
mmi'h'ATon
MA
wiivmYr/^rm'l
~3J'i ^
Si^PZ/^.'lTtyA
0/£//
jKizx/?
r^y^rr-^^Aj
-iZ'A^-/i C
Twm /^v/# a^m^y
152
RADFORD'S PRACTICAL
ed from the truck on to a platform,
from which the milk is poured into the re-
ceiving vat from the outside of the build-
ing, thus avoiding the opening and closing
of outside doors, v^^hich is very essential
in order to maintain a uniform tempera-
ture in the building and to prevent the ad-
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 thorough-
I^l— ET \^yO>rri (Tjr^
-3EC7-/o/v^ Ti-iR'DuCH AS'.».»
mittance of any impure air. From the re-
ceiving vat the milk flow.0 by gravity
through the various machines and appara-
tus without having to be handled by any
liands until it is sealed in bottles, not only
for economical, but more especially for
sanitary reasons.
From the receiving vat the milk Hows
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 rca