Sec. 16.] 



THE BARN AND ITS APPURTENANCES. 



299 



vantage. A piece of meat, placed upon ice, will keep a longer time tlian 

 ill the open warm air, Lut it does not keep as good as in drj air of ice 

 temperature, and it spoils vor\' quickly at'ter it is taken off the ice. A cus- 

 tard pie kept tliree days on the ice will be slimy and not tootlisomc ; but 

 when kept in a good refrigerator, the pie will be as sweet and drj* as it is in 

 a pantry in cool weather; a piece of meat will keep in July as well as in 

 January. Such a refrigerator has tiie ice at tiie top, and the air cooled by 

 it falls upon the food below, or on a shelf alongside of the ice, and is as dry 

 as any other cold air. A box of fine charcoal, kept in the refrigeratov, and 

 changed every month, will absorb all tlie unpleasant odors and keep the air 

 sweet. Such refrigerators are common now in New York in families, and 

 some of the Ijutchers have them large enough to store the quarters of a bid- 

 lock and several sheep and calves. And some of the packing-houses have 

 them large enough to store and cut and pack, in a winter atmosphere, several 

 hundred hogs a day. Witliout such " cooling-rooms," the summer slaughter- 

 ing of butchers' animals could never be carried on to tiie great extent it is in 

 all the large sea-board cities. This is one of the great inventions of the 

 present age. These improved refrigerators, of suitable size for families,' cost 

 from $15 to §50 each. Ours, which cost §25, is worth $10 a year — has been 

 in use five years, and is just as good as ever, and we see no reason why it 

 will not be so ten years hence. It is better than none, even without ice, as 

 it preserves an even condition of temperature. Every farmer should liavc 

 ice, and no one should be without a refrigerator in some very conveiiient 

 locality near the kitchen or store-room. 



SECTIOX XM.-Tlli: DARN AND ITS APPrRTENAXCES. 



F all that might be profitably said under the title of this 

 (r section were given, we should require a whole volnmc 

 instead of a few pages, which is all the space we can allot 

 to the important subject. 



A farm witliout a barn is only to be tolerated in a new 

 settlement, as in some cases on the great prairies, where tlie 

 land can be got under cultivation before the owner can erect 

 he necessary buildings. Even there, we have always no- 

 iced that the most thrifty farmers were those who ercrted 

 le best barns, at the earliest moment practicable. 

 Tlie barn and its appurtenances, treated of in this section, 

 contains inforniatiun tiiat will be found valuable to everyone 

 ho owns, or ever expects to own, a farm. 

 310. The Isc and Value of Barus. and thfir Location.— Of 

 course, a good barn is one of tiic gnat essentials of a lariiiery— one that can 



