40 THE YOUNG FARMER'S MANUAL. 



wood. In nailing on siding or inch boards, if the timber is hard 

 wood, nails of a smaller size should be used. Let a workman 

 attempt to nail on a half-inch board with tenpenny nails driven 

 into a stud of sugar maple, thoroughly seasoned ; and after the nail 

 has entered about one inch it will bend or break ; and the siding 

 will most assuredly be split. Let sixpenny nails be used for nail 

 ing into hard wood, and eights and tens according to the thickness 

 of the boards when the studs, posts, or girders are of soft wood. 



23. In order to keep the large beams from springing outwards 

 or in either direction, two or three of the middle joists should bo 

 let in with a dove-tail. 



24. Rafters should be firmly spiked not pinned with wooden 

 pins to the plates ; because wooden pins are very liable to 

 shrink and become loose ; and if the roof should project as far 

 as it ought to in order to appear well, a violent gale of wind 

 would lift the roof from the plates. But forty penny nails will 

 hold it in place. 



25. Reference should be had, in erecting a large barn, to the 

 most proper and economical disposition of the room. The joists, 

 which extend from one large beam to another, should be loose, so 

 that they can be removed until the mow is filled up to them, 

 when they should be put in their places, and a few loose boards 

 laid on them. Now the lower part of the mow may be threshed 

 out ; and then the upper part can be threshed, and the straw de 

 posited in the lower part of the mow. Should more room be 

 needed, the horse fork may be used to pitch a lot of straw into 

 the upper part of the mow. 



26. Every good barn should have a basement story, and a 

 water channel of tile should be laid around the entire foundation, 

 as recommended for a cellar, paragraph 11, in order to render it 

 as dry as possible ; and the barnyard should be so constructed 

 that no manure will be wasted. 



27. Eaves-troughs should conduct all surplus water into the 

 tile, for the purpose of keeping them open. Basement and cellar 

 walls are often ruined by allowing the water to fall from the 

 eaves and soak into the ground along the walls. 



