Lay out the building: for the foundation wall, dig a trench 12 inches wide and from 2 to 3 feet below ground level. Set box forms, so as to bring the surface of the finished foundation and floor 1½ to 2 feet above ground level, according to the height of the “drag” conveyor used by local corn-shellers.
As the floor will only be 6 inches thick, fill in between the foundation walls with gravel to within a distance of 6 inches of top of forms. Soak this fill thoroughly, and tamp and roll it well, before placing concrete on top.
Mix concrete (1: 2: 4) and fill the foundation forms. Beginning at one end of the building, lay the concrete floor in sections 4 feet wide, and continue until the entire floor is placed.
In order to fasten the wooden sill for the granary uprights to the concrete floor, insert ¾-inch bolts heads down or strap irons bent like capital Z’s at the necessary points in the green concrete of foundation. The bolts are long enough to pass through holes in the sill and to receive nuts and washers. The straps are long enough to be spiked to the uprights.
Finish the surface of the floor with a steel trowel, so as to render scooping of the grain an easy matter.
Approximate cost per square foot of floor surface, 12 cents.
Concrete Barn Floors
Investigations of the Department of Agriculture have disclosed the fact that many cases of typhoid fever and malaria, often considered unaccountable in their origin, are the result of the germs being carried by the house-fly. Screens, flypaper, and poisons are all very well, in a small way, but to free the place of flies means getting rid of the conditions which produce them. Leaving out the manure pile ([see Manure Pits], page 45), the favorite breeding-place of flies is the foul floors of the cow and horse barns. The barn can be almost entirely rid of flies by building floors and manure pits of concrete.