lOi BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



As "wc are appointed to the honorable and responsible duty of 

 furnishing good and proper plans for barns, to all who may want 

 barns hereafter, we cannot stop here to show both sides of the picture 

 of barns as they were. Much improvement is seen on every hand 

 over the old style, consisting of a wooden frame standing on a few 

 wooden blocks or cobble stones, covered with single boards, with a 

 generous crack at each joint for ventilation, rendering the inside 

 rather the colder side. 



In building, wc study convenience and adaptation to the uses and 

 purposes intended. To this we join economy, and look to a prudent 

 disposition of material' to secure strength and permanence to the 

 erection, and greatest convenient space in proportion to the outside. 

 This lasi point is often lost sight of in the many long, low, narrow 

 buildings everywhere to be met with. (1.) Let us look at the plain, 

 simple teachings of geometry in this connection. 



Take a barn fifty by thirty feet, and height of walls fifteen feet. 

 This gives us of enclosed cubic feet of space, 50X30=1500X 

 15=22,500 feet. Take a barn forty by forty feet, and fifteen feet 

 high, and we have of enclosed space, 40X40=1600X15=24,000. 

 Thus we see a clear gain of fifteen hundred cubic feet of space 

 in precisely the same number of square feet in the outer walls. 

 This is obtained in the change of form from the parallelogram to the 

 square. Then the roof is the same on a barn of fifteen feet in height 

 as one of twenty. An economical plan as regards enclosed space 

 for the quadrilateral form, is, to adopt the full width for convenience, 

 as proved by experience, and also the full height j then extend in 

 length to meet the demands of the case. 



In economy of enclosed space, geometry teaches us farther in this 

 matter. It is consistent with our general purpose to show a practi- 

 cable approximation to the circle in the erection of our buildings, of 

 whatever materials. 



Take a barn thirty by thirty feet, and twenty feet high — 30X30 

 =900X20=18,000 feet. Compare with this an octagon of the 

 same extent of wall, each of its eight sides being fifteen feet. AVc 



(1.) The committee, in consulting European authority on barns and stables, find 

 one point in their practice to commend — permanence in their structures. Beyond 

 this, we have only to say, they are long, low and narrow, not generally designed for 

 the storage of grain or bay, and affording no shelter for manure. 



