156 DOMESTIC WATER SUPPLIES FOR THE FARM 



installed in heavily timbered barns. The tank should always, if 

 possible, be placed above a partition or other source of support 

 to the floor. By using a large but shallow tank, the weight is 

 more widely distributed, permitting larger supplies to be stored. 

 Under such conditions, rectangular tanks are necessarily more 

 convenient than round types. Sometimes a reserve tank is lo- 

 cated in the cellar, the water being pumped to the higher tank as 

 the demand arises. Such tanks may be filled with rain water 

 (see House-tanks, page 150), but are more commonly supplied by 

 pumping from a well or spring. Tanks in barns are conven- 

 iently filled by means of windmills located on the roof above 

 them. 



The location of a tank within a house or barn materially re- 

 duces the danger of freezing. The tank may be easily surrounded 

 by straw or other insulating material, while the pipes are kept 

 warm by the heat of the stoves within the house, or, to a certain 

 extent, by the warmth of the stock quartered in the barn. It 

 will usually be desirable, however, to have the pump located in a 

 dry well, covered to keep out the cold air, and to bury the pipes 

 below the winter frost line. 



Exposed tanks give much trouble in northern latitudes owing 

 to the tendency of the piping to freeze. Some relief is afforded" 

 by wrapping the pipes with several layers of insulating material 

 and inclosing the w r hole in a box, but this does not prevent freez- 

 ing within the tank itself. By shutting off the water at the tank 

 and draining the pipes most of the trouble may be prevented, but, 

 inasmuch as this involves climbing the tank, perhaps several 

 times a day, it is rather a heroic and burdensome process during 

 the long cold winters of the North. In cold climates the whole 

 system, tank, tower, engine and pump, may have to be housed 

 and kept warm by fires. 



The size of a tank will be determined principally by the num- 

 ber of people and head of cattle to be supplied, but will vary 

 somewhat with the conditions of filling. If a gasoline or similar 

 engine is used, a tank that will hold a day's supply will often be 



