igio] ECONOMY OF THE ROUND DAIRY BARN 3 



quires much more lumber. As the price of lumber has advanced so 

 materially in recent years, the possible saving in this material is a 

 large item, and well worth investigating. 



The objections to round barns have usually been made by those 

 who have only a superficial knowledge of the subject, and do not 

 really understand the relative merits of the two forms. To the 

 writer's knowledge, there has never been published a carefully fig- 

 ured out, detailed comparison of a properly constructed circular 

 barn with the rectangular barn. 



The difficulty with most round barns that have been built, thus 

 far, is that they do not have a self-supporting roof, and conse- 

 quently lose many of the advantages of a properly constructed 

 round barn. This is the principal reason why round barns have 

 not become more popular. A straight roof necessarily requires 

 many supports in the barn below. These are both costly and in- 

 convenient, and make the roof no stronger than a dome-shaped, 

 self-supporting roof which nearly doubles the capacity of the mow. 

 See Fig. (i). 



Many who have thus disregarded capacity have also wasted 

 lumber and made a needless amount of work by chopping or hew- 

 ing out the sill and plate, thus requiring more labor and lumber, 

 besides sacrificing the greater strength of a built-up sill. Rightly 

 constructed round barns are, however, being built to a limited ex- 

 tent. One contractor has erected twenty-four round barns, with 

 self supporting roofs, in the last nine years. These barns vary in 

 size from 40 feet in diameter with 1 8- foot posts to 102 feet in 

 diameter with 3O-foot posts. 



Another reason for the scarcity of round barns is the difficulty 

 in getting them built. Most carpenters hesitate to undertake the 

 work because in the erection of a round barn the construction 

 should be entirely different from that of the rectangular form. 

 Many new problems present themselves, but when these are once 

 understood, the round barn offers no more difficulties in construc- 

 tion than the rectangular form. It is, however r important to have 

 a head carpenter who is accustomed to putting up round barns, as 

 a man with ingenuity and experience can take advantage of many 

 opportunities to save labor and material. 



KIND OF BARN NEEDED 



The first thing to consider in the erection of a barn is a con- 

 venient arrangement for the purpose for which it is to be used. 

 At the University of Illinois, two years ago, a twenty-acre demon- 

 stration dairy farm was started, the sole object being to produce 

 the largest amount of milk per acre at the least possible cost. To 



