Concrete Construction for the Home and the Farm

by Atlas Portland Cement Company

Concrete in the Country

How the American Farmer is Solving
His Conservation Problem

Conservation is no new problem—it is as old as life itself. It becomes a highly important question to the person or the nation only when the resources scarcely supply the demands. Such is the situation in the United States to-day. In the early days the removal of the forests was necessary that much grain might be grown. The young Nation had to have money, and as farming was the only means at hand to furnish it, the natural fertility of the fields was reduced. But the money thus supplied was merely a long-time loan on the Bank of Natural Resources. To-day the vanishing forests and the failing fertility of the fields bear witness that the loan is now due. Hence the problem of conservation. Strange as it may seem, the farmer is using one material not only to replace lumber but also, in a way, to restore the fertility of his fields—that material is concrete.

The national and state governments and the railroads were the first to make extensive use of concrete. Not only did the beauty and mystery of this new construction naturally appeal to the farmer, but he concluded that the railroads did not use it, in preference to wood, steel and stone, merely to decorate the landscape. He knew too much about railroads. So strongly did the railroads’ idea of economy (the dollar argument) appeal to him that the farmer of the West is now building practically everything about the farm of concrete. At first, and quite naturally, land-owners in the rock and gravel regions began using this new form of construction; but, since its cheapness in first cost and value in lasting qualities have become generally known, a wave of enthusiasm for farm structures of concrete has swept the entire country. A gravel pit is now more valuable than many a gold mine.

With little help other than looking and listening, the farmer grasped the idea of a concrete walk, and being a natural inventor and jack-of-all-trades, improved on the method by adding a small curb next to his flower bed to keep the dirt from washing on the white walk. This walk was a blessing to the boy—all the time formerly given to scrubbing and weeding the old brick walk could now be devoted to fishing. The yard walk was extended to the barns and outlying buildings. Wading through seas of mud and resulting tracked-up kitchen floors became a thing of the past. By simply increasing the width of the walk, a cellar floor was provided and the farmer had a dry cellar. This was so clean and so odorless that he considered such a floor fit for that most immaculate of all places—the milk house. Concrete cellar hatchway and steps, safe under the heaviest barrel of vinegar, and water-tight, were made in a manner similar to walks.

Brick work had long been laid up in a mixture of Portland cement and sand. As this kept the water out, the farmer reasoned that it would keep the water in, and he started to build cistern floors, walls and cover of Portland cement concrete at one-third to one-half the cost of the old brick cistern.

After a little more observation, he quit digging deep cistern-pits, with the necessary annoyance of thawing out frozen pumps and carrying water—he built a concrete cistern on top of the ground and made the pumping and carrying of the water a mere matter of turning a faucet in the kitchen and the bath room.

Several years ago corn was so cheap that in some sections it was burned for fuel instead of coal. No consideration was then given to the bushels wasted in muddy feed lots. If the mud became too deep, the feeding was transferred to the blue grass pasture. To be sure, as the sod wore out, the feeding-place had to be changed; but somebody had advanced the idea that this particular method of feeding was good for the soil. Many farmers had tried wooden feeding floors and had found them a paying proposition as far as the saving of feed was concerned, in the general health of the animal, and in the shortened time of fattening. But two great drawbacks were the rats that infested them and the constant need of repairs. In concrete the thoughtful farmer saw the possibilities of an ideal floor—an easily cleaned, rat-proof, disease-proof surface upon which his hogs, sheep, cattle and poultry might consume the feed even to the smallest particle.

So satisfactory did the feeding floor prove that the same treatment suggested itself as a remedy for the fly-breeding, muddy holes in the earthen floors and the rat-infested wooden floors of the barns. But the careful horseman held up a bit: he was afraid that stamping at the flies, his valuable Percherons, Shires and Morgans might stiffen up their legs. He experimented by placing concrete floors in his open sheds, which were usually too muddy for the stock to lie down in stormy weather, just when the straw stacks afforded no protection and when he needed the sheds most, and found such floors satisfactory.