.-{34 ANNTAI. KEPOliT OF THE r)ff. Dor. 



twenty" -lour feeL; the t'lout on a level with the surface, and a fool 

 declining at the rear; with the inside of the wall filled up with coal 

 ashes for protection from ''varments," as well as frost, and the out- 

 side of Ihe wall banked up with ground. A strong frame with six 

 by two-inch studding and rafters, boarded on both sides and ceiled 

 under the roof. I had this real well filled with sawdust throughout 

 the building, excepting I used coal ashes between ceiling and roof. 

 Two -windows with double shutters, one door wide enough for two 

 men with a barrel to pass through with ease, with a single and dou- 

 ble door, the latter opening in the inside and only shut in cold 

 weather. The floor is laid with six-inch boards one inch apart, with 

 a six-inch pipe entering under the upper end of the floor and extend- 

 ing two feet under ground, one hundred feet away from the house 

 towards the northwest and in an upright position ten feet high, with 

 a four-foot funnel turned in same direction. The house has a ven- 

 tilator on the top in the centre, and with this great current of air 

 coming in under the floor, the ventilation is simply complete; it 

 is my own idea, taken from the ocean steamers forcing air down 

 into their ships. Besides the air coming in under the ground this 

 depth and distance is rather cool in summer and moderate in win- 

 ter, flight changes of the weather don't affect the uniformity of 

 the house. The fact is, in mid-summer you find a cool atmosphere 

 in the house, as well as moderate in mid-winter, I have had Bald- 

 wins put in when picked from the trees, in open barrels, that have 

 not had over a half dozen rotten apples in a barrel, when marketed 

 in February, and have taken forty barrels of Baldwins to market in 

 June. Boslers were not sufliciently ripe to eat in February. 1 

 then had fresh, well kept apples that had lost none of their fine 

 flavor and bright appearance, which is very desirable. You don't 

 want apples from a close cellar after using them that are kept iu 

 this way. 



Alas, for my mistake here again, the sawdust caused the whole 

 structure, excepting the roof which had the coal ashes, to take the 

 dry rot; the six-inch square post and the studding, all solid w^hite 

 oak, was completely rotted, also the lining and the pine painted 

 weather boarding in places as thin as paper. I suppose I packed 

 the sawdust too lightly, as it was the cause of all this trouble. Well. 

 I had a house to build, and the trouble was to build the house with 

 the roof on first. I asked Mr. Rask, of Greeusburg, if I could do so; 

 [he said, yes; that he had heard of a man in Sweden that built a 

 chimney by commencing on top, (this was a good ways from home). 

 We propi)ed and tied the roof and took out some of the old timber — 

 some were not quite rotted ofl' — and put in new, and so on all around 

 We used two rows of three-inch studding with prepared cold storage 

 paper next fho weather boarding and botwe'^'n the studding, and al8«t 



