ISO?. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
475 
A MICHIGAN CONCRETE BARN. 
How It Was Built 
PART II. 
Fig; 226 shows a silo tinder construction; 1, is cow 
stable Wall; 2, is storage barn wall; 3, is silo, showing 
Opening for the doors, and the general appearance of 
the building during construction. The forms arc on the 
last course of wall, 36 feet above guide line; 4, is the 
hoist, one leg in silo and one outside; 5, is the form 
made of galvanized iron, 30 inches wide, 20 gage. Fig, 
227 shows the buildings from the barnyard side: Thin 
picture, I think, shows every feature of the 
buildings very plainly. 
In diagram, Fig. 225, showing ground plan, 
A is the residence; B, room for milk wagon; 
C, milk room, 1514 feet square; D, cream 
tank, 3x8 feet; E, milk cooling tank, 314x10; 
F, platform to front barn door; G, ice 
house; H, hay chute; K, barn floors, 2Sx38; 
L L, feeding alleys; M P, horse stalls; O, 
hay chute; R, cross alley; S, water tank; 
T T, silos, 40 feet 6 inches high and 20 feet 
diameter inside; V, grain and feed storage; 
X X, cross alley, three feet wide; Y 
Y, cow stalls, 42 on west side end, 
38 on other, with drop at rear, 14 inches 
wide and 8 deep; Z Z, alley behind cows; 
a a, feeding alley, 9 feet wide; b c, concrete 
ventilators, 3 feet 3 inches diameter inside by 
50 feet high; e e, cross alley; f, manure pit. 
The milk house is out away from the 
barn, and is built entirely of concrete; floor, 
roof, walks, partitions and cooling tanks, 
everything except doors and windows. It is 
one story, except a small receiving room above, 
where the milk Is taken in from the stable. 
As to the cost of these buildings and of 
concrete construction compared with wood, 
reliable engineers and architects put it at 
from five to 25 per cent above wood con¬ 
struction. In the case of these buildings I believe it 
would figure out about -15 per cent, but we worked 
under some difficulties that would in most cases be 
done away with. We paid $1 per yard for gravel, which 
was hauled two miles; cement cost $1.45 per barrel; 
common labor, 17*4 cents per hour; mechanics, from 20 
to 35 cents per hour, mostly 25 cents. The total cost 
of the buildings was $11,000: There is some lumber 
and the entire lot of molds and apparatus left. The 
molds cost at least $450, and are still good for other 
building and for sale. The work was carried on along 
together so that it was out of the question to 
keep track of the cost of various pieces of 
it separate and it can only be estimated by 
measuring the amount of material used. I 
will give a little example of the difference in 
the cost of placing concrete. In a trench for 
foundation, one day, seven men put in con¬ 
crete at the rate of one cubic yard in 14 
minutes, including the entire mixing and 
putting in field stone with it. Another day 
seven men and a horse, to hoist with, put 
three cubic yards in the silo wall molds, in¬ 
cluding cost of raising and setting the molds 
and building scaffold for that day, at a cost 
of $8.40 or as near that as I can estimate it 
by keeping close watch of the work, but this 
material was hoisted 40 feet, as it was the top 
course on one of the silos. Work on the 
straight, clear, concrete wall can be done 
cheaply, but inserting window frames and 
other necessary parts of building add ex¬ 
pense just as they do in any method of build¬ 
ing. However, the difference in the two 
classes of buildings will make the extra 
cost of the concrete above wood seem small 
when paint and repair bills come into con¬ 
sideration. The cost of floors on the ground 
here is from four to six cents per square 
foot; our roof cost 14 cents per square foot. 
The concrete silos at the Beach Farm 
have proved to be the finest silage keepers I 
have ever seen. To build them we struck 
the circle of the outside diameter and exca¬ 
vated the whole surface to a depth of four 
feet below the grade of the barn, and then 
around the outside in the bottom we made 
a trench about 30 inches wide and one foot deep, and 
put in a foundation reinforced with several layers of 
/4-in. iron rods. On that a starter block was laid, 
formed by a section of wood four inches thick and cut 
to a circle the exact diameter of the inside of the silo, 
20 feet. This piece of wood was only six or eight feet 
long. A circle was struck for a working line and the 
wood strip set and filled and then moved on around 
until the circle was completed. The inside mold of the 
silo was then put around in place and securely braced, 
and the wall was built up to grade with one foot of 
concrete, with stone bedded in to help fill up. Also a 
one-fourth inch steel rod was laid in the wall every 
foot of its height, and extra iron put in across between 
the doors. The wall was reinforced at the doors further 
by three one-fourth inch rods perpendicular each side 
of the door frames. The door frames were made of 
oak two inches thick, 24x30 inches in size and were 
placed about 32 inches apart, one above the other all 
the way up. The doors are made of a sheet of 16 gauge 
galvanized iron, fastened to the inside of the frame by 
several nails bent over them, they are tight and cheap, 
and easily placed and removed. 
Itl building the silos all work of hoisting, etc., was 
one foot stuff and nailed together double into seg¬ 
ments the length of the inside sheets of- iron, which on 
a 20-foot silo would be about six inches shorter than 
the outside sheets on a six inch wall, and that was the 
thickness we used. One of these wood circles was put 
on both top and bottom, just under the band iron 
that was on the edge and another was put on half way 
between and the iron was fastened to them with screws. 
The 2x4’s were put over the joinfs, same as the outside, 
and holes through them for the bolts. There were two 
more pairs of 2x4’s near the middle to clamp it further, 
and then the long 2x4’s used as uprights were clamped 
on two feet from the ends and plumbed and 
stayed in place and were the means of keep¬ 
ing the walls plumb and level. The cost of 
building the molds was about $65. They 
built the two silos and are good for several 
more and by changing the circles could be 
used on. other sizes. The walls were 
smoothed up with trowel and mortar where 
any holes were and on rough joints and then 
brushed over with a wash of clear cement 
and water. 
These silos cost about $800, roofs and all. 
They do not show the slightest crack, which 
I lay to using plenty of reinforcing and a 
firm, heavy foundation and good, rich con¬ 
crete, one to six. r. c. angevine. 
Michigan. 
BARNYARD VIEW OF CONCRETE BUIEDINGS. Fig. 227, 
done from the inside, the concrete being put in through 
the lower door. This made it very little work to land 
the buckets of concrete at any point on the scaffold 
where needed; also made the work of erecting the scaf¬ 
fold very much less than when the work is done from 
the outside. We had brackets which we bolted on the 
outside to carry a light scaffold to do the finishing work 
and to help set the molds. The forms for the silo were 
built as follows: Galvanized iron sheets were used, 20 
gauge 30x96 inches in size. A strip of heavy band iron 
was riveted on both top and bottom to make the edges 
RHODORA BL 
SIZE. Fig. 228. See Ruralisms 
stiff. For th. 
length and circ. 
silo were fastene 
top and bottom. A 
1*4 inch, and were p 
fastened over the joint 
through the wall. The s 
these joints by a spike beii. 
and on through the 2x4. The 
made very rigid. It must hole 
wall as near perfect as possible 
inner wall, circles were cut to the >- 
ets were used full 
’ diameter of the 
ild be on both 
* one another 
~e of wood 
the bolts 
ther at 
irons 
be 
A SUN MOTOR IN ARIZONA. 
In The R. N.-Y., page 400, you mention in 
Brevities a man in New Mexico who had 
sweet peas in bloom on April 16. In Salt 
River Valley, near Phcenix, Ariz., we had 
sweet peas in bloom in the open and unpro¬ 
tected in January, and continuously ever 
since. Of course, there was not an abun¬ 
dance of bloom at that time, but we could 
always find two or three any time we went 
to look for them. I send a photograph (Fig. 224) of a 
sun motor which is in operation near Tempe, Ariz. 
Were it not for the complication of the machine it would 
be practical for lots of purposes. The inside of the 
inverted umbrella is lined with looking glass, placed at 
such an angle that they all focus on the boiler, which 
is the handle of the umbrella, and painted black, but gets 
white hot soon after sun rises. The steam runs a cen¬ 
trifugal pump, throwing about 120 gallons per minute. 
The umbrella runs by clockwork so that it follows 
the sun, and is set back by hand at night. The 
cost is about $2,000. 
Arizona. earl s. ream. 
SWEET CLOVER IN THE SOUTH. 
In your issue of April 25 a Pennsylvania 
correspondent has a good word in behalf 
of Melilotus. This plant in the North and 
West is usually regarded as a weed. In the 
South the white-flowered variety is regard¬ 
ed with much favor as a forage plant, and 
also for grazing. It is largely grown in 
certain sections of this State and Alabama, 
in the limestone regions, and when the 
plant is mowed at the proper stage, before 
there is too much wood developed in it— 
the quality of the hay is considered sec¬ 
ond to none of the clover family, Alfalfa 
not excepted. It only thrives to advantage 
on lands strongly impregnated with lime; 
here it is at its best and reaches its' great¬ 
est perfection. It will take root and grow 
luxuriantly on bare lime spots where there 
is no other soil on the surface of the 
ground. In time, left to itself, it will com¬ 
pletely hide these unsightly bald places and 
corn and other field crops can be grown 
profitably on the land. It has an enormous 
tap root that penetrates deep down into 
the subsoil and gains nourishment from 
plant food denied to other leguminous 
plants. It reseeds itself every two years; 
but if the plant is mowed (in this climate 
at any rate) or grazed, so that no seed can 
develop, the plant seems to lose its natural 
tendency to give up life after two years’ 
growth, and will continue to produce good 
crops for several years in succession. It has been fully 
10 years since I have sown any Melilotus seed, and yet 
I find it every year more or less plentiful and luxuri¬ 
ant on my Johnson grass and Bermuda grass meadows. 
Of course_ the presence of this plant on the lands 
named is highly beneficial to these meadows, the coarse, 
deeply penetrating tap roots of the Melilotus opening 
up the compact soil and thus conducing to the better 
growth of both Johnson and Bermuda grasses. Hay 
made from Melilotus when the plant is in just the right 
stage of growth for best results, and properly cured, 
is a hay that is in every sense equal to the best quality 
cow pea vines, or any of the clover family 
Mississippi, EDWIN MONTGOMERY; 
