34 THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 



by themselves, so that a stone-mason will be able to select readily 

 such as he needs, first or last. 



WATER LIME CELLARS. 



13. In localities where building-stone is very scarce, and the 

 subsoil is very compact and hard, the cellar walls may be built 

 with a small amount of stone, after the manner of building in 

 this region. Excavate the ground of the size of the cellar, about 

 one foot deep, and build the foundation wall two feet high, mak 

 ing calculations to grade up on the outside nearly one foot high. 

 Let the wall above the ground be carried up with square timber 

 to the desired height. There should be a narrow space between 

 the timbers, as frost will not pass timbers of the same thickness, 

 ^when there is a space between them, as soon as it will one solid 

 stick : and so with stone foundations. If a wall is built of two 

 courses of stone, the frost will be excluded from the cellar much 

 longer than it will if the stones extend entirely across the wall. 



Now, let the cellar be dug about three and a half feet below 

 the bottom of the walls, leaving a square shoulder of earth, not less 

 than two feet wide, entirely around the cellar ; and let this 

 shoulder of earth be well plastered with water-lime mortar, both 

 on the side and on the top. This shoulder will be found a very 

 convenient shelf to place barrels on in the winter. I know of 

 cellars that have been built in this manner fifteen years, and are 

 now as good as when they were first built. But the frost must 

 be kept out of such cellars, or it will injure such plastering, and 

 make it peel off. The middle of such cellars should be the 

 highest, and a gutter made around the outside to carry off the 

 water. My own cellar is built in this manner ; and although it 

 has been built ten years, and has been injured by the frost only a 

 little in two places, still I regret that the walls were not built 

 from the bottom of the cellar with good stone. These consider 

 ations with reference to the foundation wall, are equally applicable 

 to the foundation of a barn or other out-buildings. Every build 

 ing should have a good stone wall under it, laid up in lime mortar. 



