1010. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
7o5 
SPHERICAL TYPE OF BARN. 
An Economical Mode of Construction. 
I intend to build a barn this season. Would a barn 
like this diagram, Fig. 320, make a practical dairy barn? 
The barn is fO feet in diameter. I would like to build it 
like roof plan Mo. 1, or would it be advisable to build it 
like roof plan No. 2? In roof plan No. 1 I would run the 
rafters in a complete circle from the ground, or two-foot 
foundation, up and then deck it solid, decking running 
round or parallel with the barn; then I would staple barb 
wire closely around the barn or roof, then cover with 
cement mixed with three parts clean, sharp sand to one 
part cement, put on two inches thick. I shall use 4x4’s 
for rafters or studding for eight feet high, or to the hay 
loft floor, and lxG to complete balance of circle, lxG’s 
lying flatwise. Should I have to make truss work to sup¬ 
port roof, or would it be self-supporting? Would hay 
fork swung to roof crack cement? Would it be advisable 
to build 12 by 40 silo or would it be better to make it 
larger in diameter and not so high, or build two smaller 
ones? J * 11 • B - 
Dugger, Ind. 
In 1S89 the writer designed a cylindrical barn 92 
feet in diameter, providing accommodations for 98 
head of cattle and 10 horses, there being a silo in the 
center 24 feet in diameter, 34 feet deep. This struc¬ 
ture, with its method of ventilation, was described 
and its advantages discussed in the Seventh Annual 
Report of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment 
Station. Since then many barns of this type have 
been constructed, and the present year 
Prof. Fraser, of the Illinois Experiment 
Station, has gone over the subject of 
the economy of the round dairy barn in 
Bulletin No. 143, giving many illustra¬ 
tions and a pretty full discussion of the 
subject. 
With the increasing cost and scarcity 
of lumber for building, it becomes in¬ 
creasingly important to consider the best 
methods of economizing in its use, and 
it seems best in replying to J. M. B. to 
point out the possibilities and some of 
the advantages of the spherical barn in 
contradistinction to the cylindrical type, 
which he also has under consideration. 
A study of the two illustrations, Figs. 
319 and 320, will make it clear that the 
spherical type of barn encloses the 
greatest possible volume and the largest 
floor space possible with a given amount 
of material, and makes it possible to 
utilize lumber to the,greatest advantage. 
Fig. 319 represents a spherical barn 04 
feet in diameter in which the frame is 
constructed entirely of inch lumber six 
inches wide. Fig. 320 is a similar con¬ 
struction applied to a barn 80 feet in 
diameter, as suggested by J. M. B. The 
smaller barn will accommodate 40 cows ; 
the larger one 92, with the exception 
that the silo has insufficient capacity, 
this being represented 12 feet in diame¬ 
ter, as suggested by the correspondent. 
Instead of constructing the frame as 
the letter suggests, the cheapest and 
best method, where wood is used, would 
be to build the rafters out of six-inch 
fencing, bolting and nailing them to¬ 
gether so as to form continuous rafters 
extending from the foundation wall to 
the top. Fourteen of these rafters 
would be required for the smaller barn 
and 10 for the larger. For the sake of 
brevity description will be confined to 
the smaller barn. Fourteen-foot fencing would be 
used and the lower 28 feet would consist of six 
boards each; the next 42 feet of five boards, and the 
last 28 feet of four in each rafter. These would b- 
built on the ground and erected as single pieces. 
Temporary stays would probably be required for 
stiffening until the rafters are in place. Horizontal 
girths, also made of 14-foot six-inch fencing, shaped 
to the proper circle, and held by nails and bolts, 
would be cut in between the rafters at intervals of 
six feet, as represented in the figure. The roof boards 
can then be nailed to the girths, running up and down. 
We believe it would be practicable, as the correspon¬ 
dent suggests, to provide such a barn with a cement 
roof, but so far as we know the idea never has been 
put to a practical test. We think a cheaper roof 
could be constructed by using galvanized iron, and 
if the iron were shaped and corrugated at a factory 
and galvanized after the shaping and corrugation, an 
ideal roofing for barns would be thus provided. The 
corrugations should, of course, run up and down and 
they could be easily shipped from the factory in 
bundles to be quickly and readily applied. If a cement 
covering were to be applied wire might be used as 
the correspondent suggests, but one of the good quali¬ 
ties of metal lath, such as are now used in outside 
work for houses, would answer the purpose, we 
think, better. In our judgment a thickness of one inch 
would be sufficient and we should be inclined to 
recommend the cement to be made richer than one to 
three, say one to two, or at most 2.5. 
If the spherical portion of the barn is begun at the 
stable floor, rather than at the floor above, as is rep¬ 
resented in Fig. 319, for the sake of warmth the 
stable should be sheeted inside. The sheeting may 
then be covered with the metal lath and the surface 
plastered as on the outside. The walls would then be 
perfectly air-tight, contain a dead air space and have 
two thicknesses of lumber to serve as non-con¬ 
ductors. At the same time the hollow spaces can be 
used at proper intervals for fresh air intakes for 
ventilation. 
To strengthen the roof it would be necessary to tie 
the sections of the girths together in some manner. 
One method would be that of bolting clevis bars of 
iron to the ends of the sections, bending these around 
the rafters. Perhaps a better method would be the 
use of tie-rods provided with nut and washer, stretch¬ 
ing from one rafter to another at suitable intervals. 
These would permit drawing the rafters tight against 
the girths and would form continuous hoops. A 
roof thus constructed would be self-supporting and 
sufficiently stable to carry the track of the hay fork. 
The barn SO feet in diameter is not large enough to 
handle two rows of cattle and at the same time pro- 
at prices that were attractive. When the delivery was 
actually made and the standard articles failed to come 
he assured us that they had been ordered with the 
other things included in the shipment, and had prob¬ 
ably been delivered to the wrong party, but would be 
returned to our place. 
As I remember it, the only article which we got 
from him that was fit for human consumption was 
the rice. His tea was tried and returned to him on 
the spot against his great protestations of its high 
quality. The tea appeared to be only dry tea stems, 
and of course made up very rank and bitter. His 
coffee was a very low grade of half bean or imma¬ 
ture bean, and was unfit for use. We also ordered 
him to leave a few sample bottles of extracts, which 
are nothing more than cheap substitute bottles col¬ 
ored with coal-tar dyes. Like most of our neighbors 
who were taken in by this fellow, we kept what little 
stuff we bought from him and have kept mum about 
it, but if he ever comes back here, which we do not 
expect, he stands in danger of being skinned alive by 
an aggregation of irate housewives. His name is J. T. 
Kerr and he purports to have been born in Virginia, 
which I do not believe, and to represent the Ameri¬ 
can Grocery Co., at Chattanooga, which I do not be¬ 
lieve; in fact I think that investigation will show that 
there never was an American Grocery Co. in Chat- 
c. c. B. 
Maury Co., Tenn. 
tanooga. 
A MICHIGAN CURRANT AND RASPBERRY FIELD. Fig. 321. 
A WHITE-FACED FARM LIELPER. Fig. 322. 
vide silo in the center having sufficient capacity for 
the number of cows which could be housed; 85 or 
88 feet, however, would answer. To care for the water 
shed from the roof some form of cement gutter would 
be required at the foundation wall, as indicated in the 
cross-section. 
The outside surface of the smaller barn, omitting 
the cupola, is 14,476 square feet, and the cubical con¬ 
tents above the stable is 6S,G30 cubic feet. The 
amount of lumber required for the frame is about 
6,000 feet of six-inch fencing. We do not think that 
the roof boards alone, even reinforced by the wire 
as suggested by J. M. B., would be sufficiently strong. 
F. II. KING. 
THE “BOX-CAR FRAUD.” 
How It Is Worked. 
The ‘‘box-car fraud" has worked our community. 
This fellow handled the whole thing by himself. He 
would come and take your orders for coffee, tea, soap, 
starch, baking-powder, rice, extracts, etc. He had his 
sample case, which contained a good line of stuff. His 
car would arrive at a central point on a certain day, 
and through his ability to get carload lots he would 
offer these goods at very attractive prices. If you 
did not want his brands of soap, baking-powder, ex¬ 
tracts, etc., he would sell you anv standard make still 
PECANS AND SUBSTITUTION. 
There has been some discussion in 
Tiie R. N.-Y. about substitution in the 
sale of pecan trees for planting. It is 
not uncommon to substitute one variety 
for another on small retail orders, but 
the variety is always properly labeled, 
so that the buyer knows what he is 
planting. The writer has visited the 
principal pecan nurseries from time to 
time and has, with few exceptions, al¬ 
ways found the varieties pure and true 
to name. It is unreasonable to presume 
that a nurseryman would take extra 
pains and go to heavy expense to have 
his varieties pure and true to. label and 
then send the trees out promiscuously 
in filling orders; so that from my ob¬ 
servation 1- feel sure that, with few ex¬ 
ceptions.' fraud and substituti m in the 
sale of pecan trees is confined to dealers 
or agents who are itv the business fo'r 
what they can get out 6f 'it for the 
present and who care nothing for a repu¬ 
tation, or who have no reputation to 
sustain. 
Selling pecan trees with an uncondi¬ 
tional guarantee as to their genuineness, 
would ruin any nurseryman, as not 
everybody is careful or even strictly hon¬ 
est. For instance: A buyer of pecan 
trees may buy from a half dozen differ¬ 
ent sources and even forget from whom 
he did buy or the varieties bought, but 
he would hardly forget the nursery who 
sold the guaranteed trees, and would 
blame him for all the “fake” trees! 
The only way a nursery could sell un¬ 
der a guarantee against damage would 
be to bind the purchaser to buy from 
no one else, and keep a record of the 
trees sold him and a plot of the orchard, 
etc. Some few trees die down and some are broken 
down and come up from below the grafts, and this 
alone would perhaps necessitate one or more visits 
to the orchards. Taken altogether, the prices of the 
trees would have to be doubled and the number of 
trees would have to be large to be worth the trouble. 
As a rule, buyers of trees who want the most want 
to pay the least for the trees, and are the more likely 
to be swindled, as they invariably hunt the cheapest 
trees or the buyer who will furnish them the cheapest. 
All of the nurserymen growing good stock in the im¬ 
proved large paper-shell pecans find no trouble in dis¬ 
posing of their product, so that it is reasonable to 
assume that they would not care to furnish stock on 
an unconditional guarantee, except on very large or¬ 
ders and then only after binding the buyer to buy from 
no one else and have a stipulated price at which the 
trees were to be furnished to protect both parties to 
the contract. Substitution and wrong labeling of 
trees of any kind, where it can be shown that it was 
done wilfully to deceive, should be punishable, but this 
is in each case a matter for the courts to decide. Laws 
making nurserymen responsible for damages and sup¬ 
posed damages resulting from mistakes, would elim¬ 
inate the responsible nursery and give the rogue the 
field, for the reason that the reliable nursery firm 
who expected to “make good” would have to double 
his prices and could not compete with the firm who 
expected to “step down and out” after catching all the 
“suckers” possible, for it must be borne in mind that 
after all, it is the price that counts! j. f. jones. 
Louisiana. 
