510
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
However, this should mislead no one nor frighten him from his undertaking; for the difference between the cost of a massive and of a lighter structure is very apparent, and the saving in the latter great and important.
The saving invested at five per cent, doubles at compound interest once in fourteen years. If we can, therefore, spare only a third or a half of the building expenses, and invest them, we have in fourteen years its double and in twenty- eight years its quadruple. With this great sum repairs can certainly be made, and in fact the whole building be reconstructed every fourteen years without touching the sum originally invested. At the rate of six per cent., which is now usual, the advantages of this method are still greater.
Any one, therefore, who is under the necessity that I was at this time of erecting new farm buildings, is recommended most strongly to select some simple and cheap, yet durable form of construction.
I have always striven on my five farms for the greatest saving of building capital possible, but at the same time for the erection of practical and convenient structures. I have constructed buildings varying from the greatest solidity to the utmost lightness, as their location itself varied. The difference of their cost was very important.
The costs of my cattle-sheds per square foot of surface were, for instance :
On the farm of Franzenshof, where the walls to the roof were entirely of stone, having in some cases an attic story, while the ground story is vaulted with brick in spans of thirty-five feet without supporting pillars, the roof being covered with tarred paper, $1.12.
On the farm of Carolinenhof: Here the floor and walls rest on a foundation of stone, the walls in the ground-floor and attic are of bricks, made on the spot, the ceiling over the ground-floor is vaulted in Belgian manner with bricks rising from horizontal and parallel joints supported by posts. The roof is covered with tarred paper, ninety-one cents.
On the farm of Hajka: Here the foundations and base are of stone, the remaining walls to the roof are of air-dried bricks, the ceiling over the ground-floor is made of birch trunks, and the roof is of straw, eighty-four cents.