Part 4

Determine the grading or sloping of the gutter bottom from observation of direction of the flow of surface water during rain storms, or from local conditions, such as location of outlet into underground drain. Excavate a trench 1 foot 6 inches in width, 10 inches deep on each side, and hollowed out to 13 inches deep in the middle. Use a straight edge or a grade cord, together with a spirit level, to give the bottom of the trench the desired slope or “fall.” For each foot of length a slope of one-eighth inch will be sufficient.

Clean the dirt off the foundation wall with a stiff broom or brush.

In the bottom of the trench place a 6-inch foundation of well-“tamped” gravel, brickbats or crushed stone.

Make a one-bag batch of concrete in proportions, 1: 2½: 5. Have the mixture just wet enough to tamp well.

Place a 4-inch thickness of concrete to form a dish-shaped gutter 3 inches deep in the middle. Every five feet, make an expansion joint ⅛ of an inch wide by inserting a metal strip not less than 7 inches wide and 18 inches long, or by cutting a joint entirely through the concrete with a straight spade. Smooth the surface with a wooden float.

=Materials Required= One cubic yard crushed rock or screened gravel; ½ cubic yard sand; 6 bags of Portland cement, for a 50-foot section.

Repairs to Farm Buildings

Since wood always fails first at the ground, the use of concrete on the farm has developed from the ground up. After a farmer has had to replace several sills or blocks of wood, he begins to look about him for a new material which will not rot or will not have to be replaced. Concrete is his natural selection.

Support the building by temporary struts, alongside of the post to be removed. Saw off post entirely above rotten part. Dig a hole directly under the post 2 feet deep, and slightly larger than the post itself. Build a box with sides only, with the same inside measurement as the hole already dug. The box must be long enough to reach from the ground to a few inches above the bottom of post.

Fill hole with concrete, mixed 1: 2: 4. Then place the box in position, and fill it with concrete until the bottom of the sawed-off post is embedded about ½ an inch in the mixture. Leave the forms in place for one week and after two weeks remove the struts which have been used as temporary support for the building. The concrete should be mixed fairly wet, and churned with a stick while being placed.

The bottom of the foundation may be made larger than the top, by simply sloping one side of the box form—giving the effect shown in the photograph.

Why Concrete Should be Used to Repair Farm Buildings

Repairs to foundations of this kind vary greatly in size and shape. Concrete is the only material which can be used for any purpose, whether large or small, without first having to be cut to the shape and size desired. Consequently there is no cheaper known material for this kind of work.

Replacing an Entire Foundation with Concrete

The work can be done by the farmer, with the help of his own farm labor, at times when more important work is not claiming his attention.

Foundations of concrete are indestructible.

At necessary points, remove a few stones or bricks, as the case may be, inserting short pieces of heavy timber to wedge or jack up the building. Carefully raise the building, by this means, until it stands free of all foundations. Remove all the old stone or brick foundation to be replaced, and set in place the forms for the concrete.

Small buildings can usually be raised high enough to allow working room, whereby the form may be filled right up to the top with concrete. The mixture should be a wet one. (Proportions, 1: 2: 4.)

Where buildings are too cumbersome to be raised by “jacking,” to a sufficient height to give head-room, it will be found necessary to make the foundations 3 inches wider than the sill. Carry the forms to the desired height and utilize this extra 3 inches of width for placing the concrete in the forms. The top board of the forms may also be left off until you are ready to place the last of the concrete. In this case the last batch of the concrete should be very wet. Tamp the concrete until it comes up flush with the bottom of the sill, to the entire width of the wall.

Be sure to leave a space in the concrete wall, under and on the sides of the underpinning support, so that the building may later be lowered back onto the new foundation and the timber removed. This opening must be slightly larger than the underpinning support. After the building has been lowered fill these openings with concrete. Lower the building after the foundation has been in two weeks.

A Concrete Entrance Floor

At a point 3 feet from the building, dig a trench 6 inches wide and 18 inches deep—the length of this trench to be 2 feet greater than the width of the doorway of the building. From the edge of the trench nearest to the building, dig away the earth between trench and building to a depth of 1 foot, and place here, to a depth of 6 inches, a fill of either coarse gravel or crushed rock. Do not, however, place any of this gravel fill in the trench. Mix concrete 1: 2½: 5, and lay same, first in the trench, and then on top of the gravel fill; sloping the surface so that it just meets the floor level at the doorway. Before the concrete has had time to set, provide a runway slot for the sliding doors—or better, build little guides or humps with the concrete, to hold the doors in position. If the doors happen to be swinging ones, place a gas pipe or iron socket in the soft concrete, for a “shove-fastener.”

Note the concrete curb on the right of entrance door. This prevents the gravel that surrounds the building from washing down onto the approach and getting in the way of the doors. To build this curb, use 1-inch planks placed on top of the concrete floor, to serve as forms to hold concrete in place.

=Materials Required= One cubic yard of crushed stone or screened gravel; 2½ cubic yards of sand; 5 bags of Portland cement.

This entrance floor was constructed in half a day, by one man.

Farm Buildings Should be Connected by a Concrete Driveway

By using concrete to connect up buildings, this farmer has a solid, substantial roadway that will last for all time—instead of the usual muddy, untidy space that ordinarily separates such buildings.

To construct a driveway between the various buildings of a farm, first excavate a trench 12 inches deep, this trench being the exact width that you wish the finished driveway to be. Six feet is a convenient width; but the drive should be made slightly wider than this at the corners to provide for turning of vehicles.

Place in the trench a fill of gravel to a depth of 6 inches and tamp it well. On top of the gravel fill, place your concrete mixture, to a depth of 6 inches on the sides, and 7 inches at the center.

For this work, concrete should be mixed in proportions 1: 2½: 5, and wet enough to pack well.

To finish, no mortar is needed. Leave the surface rough, so as to afford a better footing for the horses and cattle.

=Materials Required= 5 bags of Portland cement } ½ cubic yard of sand } make a section of roadway 1 cubic yard of crushed stone or } 6 by 10 feet screened gravel }

Approximate cost, at current prices of materials, 6 cents per square foot of surface.

Alleyways Between Buildings

The farmer of to-day plans for comfort and convenience. About the home, mud is the greatest of all nuisances. In the spring and winter, the driveways from the public road and the alleyways between buildings become so muddy that they are often impassable. As a result the grassy lawns and lots are driven over, cut to pieces, and the general appearance of the farm is ruined. Moreover, in bad weather the chores cannot be done unless the “hands” wear rubber boots. The women and children are unable to get out to gather the eggs and to see after the poultry. Muddy feet track up the house walks and floors.

Alleyways between buildings are built of concrete similar to driveways with this exception—they are made dish-shaped to the same extent that the driveway is crowned. This carries the roof water away from the buildings instead of letting it soak in around the foundation walls.

Carriage Washing Floors

Nothing will take the sticky mud off the wheels and body of a rig except water. People have at times tried to remove this mud by scraping, but have found that after the mud has once dried a large amount of the varnish comes off with it and the “looks” of the carriage is ruined.

Convenience in washing means that the wagon is pulled just outside of the barn and quite near the pump or other source of water supply. All of the carriages are washed in exactly this same spot, and, as this is done day after day the washing place very shortly becomes nothing more nor less than a mud hole. To avoid this a concrete floor should be built.

This floor should be of the size to take not only the wheels of the rig but the shafts or tongue as well. Unlike feeding and other floors, this floor is built with a slope toward the center, with a catch basin under the middle, from which a drain leads. Thus all of the water, together with the mud coming off the wagon, flows into the basin. This basin should be protected with a grating, with holes in same not less than ¼ of an inch. This grating should be removable so that the mud, which is bound to flow into the basin, can be removed. A pipe less than 6 inches should not be used to connect this basin up with a sewer or ditch outlet. This will prevent the stoppage of the drain for many years. A slope from the edges of the floor to the drain of ⅛ of an inch to the foot should be made. To lay the floor proceed exactly as described in “Sidewalks,” and, as the floor is exposed to the weather, contraction joints must be provided, as in Feeding Floors.

After the floor is finished and while the concrete is yet soft, make grooves in it, running from the basin to the edges of the floor. This can be done by taking a V-shaped strip of wood and driving it into the concrete at regular intervals by means of a tamper. This strip of wood should be thoroughly greased so that it may be removed without having the concrete stick to its surface.

Feeding Floors and Barnyard Pavements

The saving principle of feeding floors has long been recognized by successful breeders and feeders of live stock. The trouble, heretofore, has been to obtain an entirely satisfactory material for floor construction.

Disadvantages of Wooden Floors

Wooden floors kept the feed out of the mud and dust and not only saved every particle of grain but also prevented wheezing coughs and otherwise temporarily improved the health of the animal. However, in a short time, the best wooden floors rotted out and became infected with disease germs. Often floors had to be burned to free the farm of hog cholera.

Advantages of Concrete

In concrete the farmer and ranchman have found an ideal floor material. Such floors not only effect a saving in feed, a shortening in the time of fattening and a decrease in labor, but also afford perfect protection to the health of the animal. Concrete floors do not soak up water and therefore cannot become infected with disease germs. Their surfaces can be easily cleaned and thoroughly disinfected with oils and dips. Rats cannot nest under them. Careful tests have shown that concrete floors, through the saving of grain and manure alone, pay for themselves in the short period of one year.

How to Build Feeding Floors

Feeding floors are merely several sidewalks laid side by side, and the same general rules of construction (given under SIDEWALKS, page 28) apply to them. Choose a site in the lot where the ground is slightly sloping, well drained and wind protected, and convenient to feed and water.

Drainage Foundation

Excavate to a depth of 12 inches for the drainage foundation, and around the outside edges of the entire floor dig a trench 12 inches wide and 18 inches deep. (This trench, filled with concrete, prevents hog wallows from undermining the floor and keeps the rats from nesting under it.) Fill all of this space (except the trench) to the natural ground level with well tamped coarse gravel, crushed rock, tile culls or brickbats. This fill forms the drainage foundation as described for sidewalks.

Grading the Floor

The floor must be graded or sloped so that water will not collect on it in the winter and so that the manure washings may be caught by the gutters and run to the water-tight concrete manure pit. (To shape the gutter, make a mold or template by rounding the corners on the flat side of a 6-foot length of a 4 by 6-inch timber.) A gentle slope, toward the low corner, of ¼ of an inch for each foot of length or width is sufficient. This is secured by the use of a heavy grade stake at each corner of the floor, a straight edge or a grade line, and a spirit level.

It is an advantage to have a feeding floor its full thickness above ground. Make light floors 4 inches and floors subject to heavy loads 6 inches thick. For the forms use 2-inch lumber of a width equal to the floor thickness. Begin on a low side of the floor. Mark the grade height on each corner stake and set the forms to a grade cord stretched from stake to stake. Use only good materials and mix the concrete 1: 2½: 5 according to direction on page 15.

Placing the Concrete

Always begin placing the concrete on the low side of the floor, so that the rain from sudden showers will not run from the hard onto the newly placed concrete. Fill the trench and the slab section of the forms with concrete. Bring the surface to grade by drawing over it a straight edge with its ends on the opposite forms or with one end on the form and the other on the finished concrete. Four inches in from the edge, on each of the low sides, temporarily embed the rounded 4 by 6-inch gutter mold and tamp it down until its square top is even with the surface of the slab section of the floor. Remove the mold, finish with a wooden float and cure the floor as described on pages 31-34. Connect the gutters with the manure pit by means of a trough, another gutter, or by large drain tile laid underground.

On the next page is given an itemized bill of materials necessary for a 6-inch floor 24 by 36 feet, amply large to accommodate 50 hogs.

=Materials Required= Crushed rock or screened gravel, 20 cubic yards @ $1.10 $22.00 Sand, 10 cubic yards @ $1.00 10.00 Portland cement, 28 barrels @ $2.50 70.00 ------- $102.00

Mixing the concrete by hand, 5 men can usually finish this floor in two days. Depending upon the price of labor and materials and the thickness of the concrete, the floor will cost 6 to 12 cents for each square foot of surface.

Manure Pits and Cisterns

For restoring the fertility of the fields, there is nothing better than barnyard manure. By the ordinary methods of piling it on the ground or storing it in wooden pens, from 30 to 50 per cent. of the manure’s strength is wasted. This loss is brought about in two ways:

First—By “leaching” or washing out, due to heavy rains. Second—By heating or “firing,” caused by lack of sufficient moisture.

Since concrete pits are waterproof, manure can be kept in them as moist as necessary. Moreover, with concrete pits the supply of manure is increased, as all the liquid manure, from the gutters of the barns, barnyard pavements and feeding floors, is saved.

How to Build

Locate the manure pit handy to the barn and so as to catch the manure from the outside floors. Two pits may be better than one. Excavate the hole to the desired size and depth. (Manure pits are seldom over 4 feet deep.) Dig a sump hole 3 feet square and 2 feet deep at one corner of the pit. Slope the floor toward this hole, from which a pump will draw the liquid manure. Frame forms of 1-inch siding on 2 by 4-inch studding spaced 2 feet, so as to mold a wall 8 inches thick. If the dirt sides stand firm, they will serve for the outside form and nothing but an inside form will be required. Mix the concrete 1: 2: 4 (see page 11). Lay the floor so that it will be one solid piece 6 inches thick. No contraction joints will be necessary. Without delay, set up the forms, brace them firmly and fill them with concrete as directed under DIPPING VATS, pages 76-80. If a very large pit is needed, build it with sloping concrete ends sufficiently wide to accommodate a manure spreader. Let the inclines be gentle, and, to give the horses a firm footing, embed iron cleats every 18 inches in the slopes, the same as for dipping tanks. Cisterns for liquid manure only, may be made like ordinary CISTERNS, page 68. However, the solid manure rots more quickly and is better for the fields if both solids and liquids are kept in the same pit. An ordinary pump, with a pipe leading to the sump hole, covered with a grating, is a convenient means of removing the liquid. Liquid manure is especially good for the vegetable and flower garden, since it contains no weed seed. Cover the pits or keep the manure well soaked with water, so as to remove the principal breeding places of the house and barn fly.

The manure pit shown in the photograph is located in the side of a little hill. It is 21 feet long, 14 feet wide, 10 feet deep on the hillside and 6 feet deep on the low side. The bottom is 6 inches and the walls 8 inches thick. Four men built the pit in two days.

=Materials Required= Screened gravel or crushed rock 17 cubic yards at $1.10 $18.70 Sand 8½ cubic yards at $1.00 8.50 Portland cement 30 barrels at $2.50 75.00 ------- $102.20

The Value of Manure Pits

Rotten manure not only enriches the ground, but also increases the water-holding capacity of the soil. One load of well rotted manure from a concrete pit is worth two loads of manure as ordinarily stored.

Concrete Barnyards

The advantages of concrete feeding floors so appealed to the farmers who first built them that they enlarged the floors until their entire barnyards were surfaced with concrete.

It is no uncommon sight in the spring and winter to see an earthen barn lot so deep with mud that animals go thirsty rather than attempt a trip to the water trough.

The effect is bad on all kinds of livestock, especially on fattening animals and dairy cattle. “Feeders” must have an abundance of water to fatten quickly. Insufficient water cuts down the quantity of milk given by dairy cows. Lack of enough exercise further decreases the yield. An occasional trip through this mud to the trough, so cakes the cows’ udders with dirt that the milker wastes valuable time in washing them—and they must be washed, if one would have clean, wholesome milk. Continual tracking through the mud not only makes more currying, but often produces that irritation on horses’ legs known as “scratches.” Suddenly frozen, such an earthen lot is so rough that it is impassable. Moreover, the old barnyard—with its surface worked up year after year—becomes a storage place, which carries over the disease germs from one season to another. The “droppings” are entirely lost, and, mixed with the earth, tend to make the lot muddier the following year. To keep up the fertility of the soil, all the manure produced on a farm should be saved and returned to the fields.

Concrete Floors Increase Profits

A concrete barnyard makes a fine exercise lot in all kinds of weather and always affords a dry spot for the animal’s bed. Every shower washes the surface clean and flushes the droppings into the manure pits. Concrete yards lighten the work of the housewife, as there is no mud to be tracked on the walks and kitchen floor. The use of rubber boots is unnecessary. On concrete floors not a particle of grain need be wasted. The way to the water trough is always dry, smooth and passable. Concrete floors promote and protect the health of farm animals and increase the profits of farming, stock raising and dairying.

Construction

The construction of concrete barnyards is exactly like that of FEEDING FLOORS, page 43, except that the work is on a larger scale. Often the entire lot is not paved in one season, but from year to year as the farmer has time. In excavating for the drainage foundation (see SIDEWALKS, page 29), be careful to remove all manure and straw which may be tramped into the ground and which may be so solid as to resemble earth. In time any kind of manure decays, shrinks, causes the floor to settle and forms water and ice pockets on its surface. Dig the trench for the foundation apron as for FEEDING FLOORS—there is no material so rat-proof as concrete.

With the drainage foundation ready, set the forms in the manner described for SIDEWALKS. Even if the whole lot is not to be paved at one time, plan the grading for the entire barnyard so that the completed pavement may have perfect surface drainage. Build and cure the pavement and make provision for saving the manure the same as for concrete FEEDING FLOORS. Do not be too particular about giving the surface a smooth finish—a rougher finish affords the animals a better footing. The cost per square foot is no more than that of feeding floors—the investment yields a greater profit.

Feeding Troughs, Racks and Mangers

With a progressive farmer, the health of his livestock is second in importance only to that of his family. Concrete is a great factor in promoting and preserving health. With concrete troughs, animals are seldom “off their feed”: there are no slivers to stick into their gums. Even with wet feed, concrete troughs are never sour.

Concrete does not rot and become infested with disease germs. Such troughs and mangers can be thoroughly disinfected without injuring them.

Troughs for Horses, Cattle, and Sheep

In general, the method of constructing feeding troughs and mangers for horses and cattle is practically the same as for WATERING TROUGHS AND TANKS, page 74. An outdoor trough, suitable for feeding grain or silage to cattle and horses, is shown on page 48. (However, most farmers will prefer not to locate a feeding trough in a fence corner.) This trough is 10 feet long and 2 feet 2 inches wide, outside measurements. The bottom is 4 inches thick as also are the side and end walls at the top, but these walls slope on the inside to a thickness of 6 inches at the bottom. This extra thickness makes not only a stronger feeding trough, but also one more easily cleaned out. The entire trough is reinforced with heavy woven wire fencing laid within 1 inch of the bottom and the same distance from the inside face of the side walls. The trough is held 1 foot 4 inches above ground by concrete benches, 2 feet 2 inches wide, 1 foot thick, and extending 3 feet below the ground or feeding floor surface.