Adobe as a Building Material tor the Plains 
7 
We built at the Station this year a cow barn, a hen-house and a 
smoke house, or store room. The cow barn is 26 feet wide and 60 
feet long, inside. The walls are twelve inches thick and seven feet 
high, with concrete foundation eight inches high. On the south side, 
the walls were built only four feet with adobe. The remaining three 
feet is framed with two-by-six lumber and enclosed with muslin cur¬ 
tains. (See illustration. The picture was taken before the curtains ana 
doors were on.) These curtains furnish light and ventilation with¬ 
out draft. The roof is of corrugated iron. The rafters are 2x4x16 
placed two feet apart, with cripples at the splice in the iron and one 
in the middle of the iron to prevent sagging. The iron is nailed to 
iron at edges, lapping two inches. The rafters are supported by two rows 
of 4x4 posts—four feet on each side of the center of the building. 
At the top of these posts, a 2x6 is spiked for the rafter's to rest upon. 
The iron was painted on the under side and in the splices before it 
was laid. The upper side was painted after it was laid. The gable 
ends are boarded up with shiplap. Eighteen feet of the west end is 
partitioned off for feed, and a large door is left in the gable end 
through which to throw feed. On the south, there are two doors. One 
is three feet wide, hung on hinges, and the other six feet wide, hung on 
tubular track. 
We have two rows of swinging steel stanchions supported by the 
same posits which support the roof, leaving a nice feed alley between 
the mangers. Twenty-eight feet of the barn has conciete l looi with 
gutters and troughs of concrete. 
The cost of the building in cash and labor is shown below: 
Cement in foundation, $6.60, floor $23.40 .$ y !0 ( )() 
Lumber for entire building. ~o2.<4 
Total ..* 262 - 74 
Man labor .. .. 601 hours 
Team labor . 142 hours 
Poultry House. 
The poultry house is 14x20 feet, inside. The end walls are 12 
inches thick and the side walls are 10 inches thick. The walls ai e six 
"eet six inches high at the eves, and nine feet high at the gable, 'file 
south wall is only three feet six inches of adobe, the other three feet 
being framed and curtained in winter, and screened in summer. 
The roof is made by laying joists, of 2x6 lengthwise about three 
feet apart. The ends are toenaileo to blocks laid in the adobe. I he 
middles are spliced and rest on posts. Shiplap is laid on the joists, 
and a kind of tar paper or rubberoid is laid on the shiplap. This is 
