The Country Gentleman s Magazine 



materials; it is not, to say the least of it, 

 prudent to bring the two as near as possible — 

 it is somewhat like inviting a catastrophe. 

 Some, indeed, seem to have as great a diffi- 

 culty in such cases of tracing the relation 

 between cause and effect, as had the Irish- 

 man who, in cutting down a branch of a 

 tree, sat on the outside of the saw-cut he 

 was busily making, and when, as a result, 

 he fell to the ground with the branch 

 under him, he was not so much concerned 

 at the contusions which followed as at his 

 difficulty to clear up what he called " the 

 incxpUcahk mystery of the whole affair." But, 

 apart from the objections which we think are 

 great ones to the system of field-stacking and 

 thrashing of grain named above, there are 

 others, of which little need be said here, as 

 they will commend themselves to most of 

 our readers — as, for example, the objection, 

 that as you are to use the straw for the pur- 

 poses of your stock in the steading, you 

 thrash it out at a place at a distance from 

 them, and that, as you have in any case to 

 take the straw to the steading, it will be 

 taken easier, and got there in better condition 

 in its unthrashed state than after it is thrashed 

 and broken up. Other objections might be 

 named here, but the object of this paper not 

 being the finding fault with a system which 

 does not properly come under the term 

 " securing," as in our title, we proceed at once 

 to give such remarks as we have bearing 

 upon the subject directly. 



In other countries the corn crops are 

 nearly all placed under cover, huge barns 

 being erected for the purpose, and by which 

 the grain may be said to be secured in the 

 fullest sense of the term. This system of 

 " housing" corn crops — for it is nothing else 

 — ^has never been adopted here, and for 

 obvious reasons ; but in view of the numer- 

 ous advantages which do arise from having 

 such a valuable material as com under cover, 

 a modification of the barn has been of late 

 years proposed to be part of every well-regu- 

 lated homestead, and proposed by thoroughly 

 practical men. Some years ago we advocated 

 the system of having a covered rick or stack- 

 yard, and prepared and published plans by 



which this could have been canied out ; but 

 this plan had its defects, more especially in 

 the way by which we proposed to place the 

 com under the roof. AVe have since 

 met on a very large scale with a covered corn 

 shed, which is on a veiy much better principle 

 than the one we prepared, and of which we 

 now give the following very brief description : 

 The principal feature in the arrangement of 

 this com shed — which has been carried out 

 on the farm of G. Leigh, Esq., Luton, Beds., 

 under the superintendence and from the 

 designs of Mr Ross, the able manager of 

 the estates — is, that the necessary amount of 

 cover is obtained by adding to the length of 

 the shed rather than by increasing the width, 

 giving the maximum in the length, the 

 minimum in the breadth. The breadth 

 decided upon is 36 feet, and the length 450 

 feet. This long space is covered in with a 

 timber roof, supported at pretty long intervals 

 by pillars of home timber 18 feet in height, 

 the spaces between the pillars and the ends 

 being left open. The floor of the shed is 

 of brick ; and the base of the whole from 

 which the pillars rise, and which is carried all 

 round the shed so as thoroughly to enclose 

 the floor space, is made in the shape of a 

 low or dwarf brick wall. As we have said, 

 the floor space is completely closed in by 

 this dwarf wall, and to prevent rats and mice 

 entering it, and burrowing amongst the 

 grain, the upper part of the dwarf wall 

 is capped with a two feet deep covering of 

 zinc, up the smooth surface of which the 

 vermin cannot climb. The com, as it is 

 led from the field is carefully built up within 

 this space, beginning at one part and gradu- 

 ally filling it up ; the ends or roots of the 

 sheaves are, of course, left outwards, and so 

 carefully and neatly had this been done, that 

 when we visited the farm the vast shed looked 

 as if its end and side walls were made of straw 

 ends, so uniformly and evenly executed was 

 the surface. The result of this arrangement 

 is, that the cost of the shed is reduced to a 

 minimum, the roof and base only, with sup- 

 porting pillars, being required— the wall, so to 

 say, being formed of the close and com- 

 pactly built up shea^•es. 



