THE IMPORTANCE OF CEMENT AND ITS PRODUCTS 
IN HOUSE BUILDING—II. 
Bv J. M. H ASKELL 
On the 
Farm TN the May issue of “ House and Gar- 
den” attention was called to the 
Silos 
Farmhouse 
Greenhouse 
value of concrete as a building material on the 
farm. In the accompanying pages further illus¬ 
trations of its wide application for this use are 
shown. Indeed it may be said that it is entirely 
appropriate for every structure the farmer may 
have occasion to build from the house to the 
pigsty. This is especially so when an ample supply 
of stone is not at hand, for to build of concrete 
would be cheaper than quarrying. 
See especially the illustrations of the 
silos and barn on pages 299 and 300 
and of the interior of the cow stable on page 300. 
On page 299 is shown another excel¬ 
lent type of bungalow farmhouse, and 
one of the interiors is also shown on the same page. 
The greenhouse on page 298 speaks for 
itself , and in the beauty of its lines and 
general effect is an eloquent advocate for the cause. 
The sterner use of concrete is well 
fn^Darn WaU s b° wn on pages 298 and 299. The 
former is a dam in process of erection 
at Sprague’s Falls, Maine, and the latter is the high 
retaining wall built as a preliminary to the vast 
operations on the site of the new Grand Central 
Station in New \ ork. 
There is, however, another use of 
Bunding Bl0Ck cement to added to the versatile 
field of activity already illustrated but 
which has not yet 
been mentioned. Ibis 
is a method in which 
monolithic construc¬ 
tion gives place to 
block construction. 
That is to say t h e 
concrete, instead o f 
being used in mass 
and packed in succes¬ 
sive shapeless units 
between plank molds, 
one after another, un¬ 
til the whole wall is 
formed of a homo¬ 
geneous and mono¬ 
lithic mass, is cast in 
small, smooth molds 
of steel so as to form 
a series of blocks of 
moderate size. 
RESIDENCE BUILT OF CONCRETE BLOCKS AT CLEVELAND 
Blocks Made by the Hayden Machine Cement Age 
I hese are allowed to harden, and when hard are 
taken to the building and there laid up with mortar in 
a similar way to cut stone. In short we have now to 
deal with blocks of artificF 1 ^ione, and the laying of 
these concrete blocks is the duty of a stone mason 
with the same mortars and with the same methods 
as in ordinary masonry construction except that the 
blocks require no trimming to adjust them to their 
place, as they come to the work ready to set. The 
mortar used should be cement and lime mortar, and 
the outside joints may be repointed if desired, 
though this is not necessary. The cement blocks 
are made hollow to allow air spaces for drying the 
wall, and it is well not to fill entirely the bed joints so 
as to leave air spaces between the rows of blocks. 
When the wall is built, any irregulari- 
WaB Cing thC ties ' n color, if objectionable, may be 
overcome by a wash composed of 
cement water and lime paste in the proportion of one 
part of Portland cement to one-fourth part of lime 
paste, diluted with sufficient water to make a liquid 
wash. 
1 his acts as a waterproofing agent also, increasing 
the impermeability of the blocks. The interior of 
the house and the floors are treated in the same way 
as where the monolithic system is used. 
I he concrete building blocks are, as I 
have said, not made by unskilled 
labor in wooden molds, but in special 
machines using polished steel molds to form the 
blocks. An excellent 
machine of this de¬ 
scription is shown on 
page XVII of the 
May issue of “House 
and Garden.” 
It has an abundant 
capacity for producing 
such blocks in quan¬ 
tity, and can make 
blocks of any special 
shapes or sizes up to 
three feet long or for 
columns up to seven 
feet. 
When 
Surface of 
the Blocks concrete 
blocks 
were first introduced, 
the attention o f 
makers was given 
Making the 
Blocks 
