514
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA.
five farms for eight years, and with the best results. This would seem sufficient to remove all doubt and disbelief.
All the buildings on my farms are capable of extension to double their present size if desired.
The farms are fenced in entirely by heaps of brush. Hawthorn has been set out along these and will eventually take their place. On the farm of Franzenshof, the barns, storehouses for fodder and supplies, and the walls around the poultry-yard, were constructed of pisé, or rammed earth, previous to the year 1865. Also a green-house was built near the Castle of Horskyfeld, at the same time, with the assistance of this material ; then, in 1866, a cattle-shed on the farm of Eleanorenhof; in 1867, a cattle-shed at Franzenshof; in 1868, a stable for fifteen horses, adjacent to the Castle of Horskyfeld, and, in 1872, a dwelling-house for the laborers from a distance, near the village of Freudenck, on the farm of Carolinenhof.
This rammed earth dries and settles very slowly, and on this account it is well to postpone plastering it for a year. Otherwise, the plaster dries first and becomes blistered as the earth settles. It has then to be removed and renewed.
The rammed earthwork can be prevented from settling and cracking to a great extent by avoiding the use of clay in its construction, and employing only earthy matter just moist enough to admit of thorough ramming. If this can be found in a natural condition, it is much better than such earth as requires artificial moistening before using. The latter can never give such uniform and satisfactory results.
With practised laborers, the expense of a cubic yard of wall made of this rammed earth, without plastering, should not exceed thirty-two cents. My experience has shown that, for raising one klafter of earth (8.86 cubic yards), loading’it into wheelbarrows and transporting it a distance of two hundred feet, it is necessary to employ four laborers per day ; for transporting it to the staging, two laborers per day ; for ramming it between boards in layers of six inches, five laborers per day; i. e., in all, for 8.86 English cubic yards, eleven laborers per day; or, per one English yard, 1.2 laborers per day ; these being paid fourteen to nineteen cents per day each, the cost is eighteen to twenty-three cents.