FARMS. 173 



some basement s'a les where the air was so foul that we were 

 conscious of breathing poison. No animal can thrive where 

 there is not a good circulation of fresh air. This can be secured 

 by having ventilating tubes run from the basement to the roof 

 of the barn. With these should be connected tubes bringing in 

 fresh air from some lower elevation. The heat of the animals 

 will cause a current to run up the higher tube and produce a 

 rush of fresh air into the stables from the lower tube. Not only 

 will the stables thus be benefited, but the effluvia from the fer- 

 menting manure will also be prevented from passing through the 

 barn and contaminating the hay. 



Next to air and food, we place sunlight as essential to the 

 health of stock. The inferior animals, as well as man, delight in 

 a sun bath. A cow basking in the sun and chewing her cud 

 demurely with her eyes half shut, seems to be in the paradise of 

 cows. Precisely what is the subtle influence which sunlight 

 e-xerts on both vegetables and animals, chemists have been unable 

 fully to explain, but that there is an influence, and a powerful 

 and salutary one, all must have observed. The plant growing 

 in the shade is pale and watery, deficient in woody fibre and the 

 mineral elements which give it strength. To the animal the 

 sunlight is still more important, as its organization is more deli- 

 cate. If any one wishes to know how congenial to man is the 

 light of heaven, let him be shut up in a dark room, or dungeon, 

 for a few days. The farmer who confines his stock in dark 

 stables day after day is not only depriving them of much enjoy- 

 ment, but of one of the great essentials to health and thrift. 

 The stables should therefore be on the south side of the barn 

 and be well glazed. 



Barn architecture has been studied but little, and as a science 

 has been reduced to little system. "We have books on the Corin- 

 thian, Doric and Gothic styles of architecture for the homes of 

 men, but to the home of the beast, architects have paid compara- 

 tively little attention. A tasty, commodious, convenient and 

 economical barn is the want of all farmers, but so little has the 

 art of barn building been developed, that scarcely two farmers 

 can be found who will agree as to what constitutes a model barn. 

 The subject is certainly worthy of more consideration, both from 

 architects and farmers, and the barns that have been erected in 

 Berkshire County within a few years, both by amateur and prac- 



