REPORT OF MR. FRANCIS H. APPLETON. 511
On the Eleanorenhof farm : The foundations and base are of stone. The rest of the walls to the roof are of pisé (rammed earth). There is no attic story. The ceiling over the ground-floor is of birch trunks and the roof of straw. The building expenses were per foot only forty-five cents.
The fifth farm is in the suburb of Kolin called Keisersdorf, and contains the great grain-magazine, with adjoining sheds, which were turned into cattle-sheds, and a small collection of farm-buildings which I purchased.
The internal arrangement of the stables with straw roofs is in all cases the same, their ventilation is in all cases carefully provided for, the mangers and water-troughs are made vertically movable and the floor of the stalls is made eighteen inches deeper than that of the remainder of the building, to allow the accumulation of the manure. The floors are of beton and are impervious to moisture.
Forty-five cents per square foot seemed to me still too much to pay for buildings on the Eleanorenhof farm, and I made an attempt to reduce the cost yet further. The light straw-huts built on the farm of Carolinenhof merely for the purpose of brick-drying, had been used in winter merely through the lack of other room, as shelter for oxen. This suggested to me the idea of building an ox-shed in the same manner. This was done in January, 1868, but to provide against decay the roof was not brought into direct contact with the ground. The frame of the roof, some forty feet in width, is supported by wall-plates, and in the interior by posts resting on flat stones laid upon the ground without any underground masonry. A ditch, one and one-half to two feet in depth, is dug around the building to lead off- the snow-water and rain.
The earth dug out from this was heaped against the opening under the eaves, and against the wall-plates, to keep out draughts of air ; planks being previously placed before the wall-plates to prevent direct contact of the earth, as, in the case of decay, these planks are much easier to replace than the framework.
The cattle stand along the middle in two rows, and between them and the walls two wide passages are left. At the ends of the building are located the rooms for preparing the fodder, and for the use of the laborers.