Seo. 18.] STACKING AND STORING GRAIN. 319 



l>y shelling if it remains till spring, Init not much if the pens are so located 

 that the pigs and poultry can he let in to pick up the scattered grains. The 

 Avay to make a ruil-pcn corn-cril) is to take straight fence-rails, as near of a 

 size as possiljle, and saw part of them into halves of equal lengtli, so that 

 you can lay up a pen luilf as wide as it is long, notching tlie corners so that 

 the rails will come close enough together to prevent the cars falling out. 

 If this can not be done •with all of the cracks, they must be stopped by 

 "chinking" from the inside, or l)y boards nailed over. It is usual to liuild 

 tlie pen upon a floor of rails, which are sometimes laid on the ground, and 

 sometimes raised upon logs, stones, or blocks. The pen sliould not be over 

 eight feet high, and when full is covered with boards held on ])y a heavy 

 rail or pole. In M'oodiaiid regions the covering is usually made of " shakes" 

 — split clap-boards, such as log-cabin roofs arc generally made of. On the 

 prairies, we have frequently seen straw used for a covering; and we have 

 also seen many thousands oi liushels of wheat, lioth in the chalf and after it is 

 winnowed, stored in the same rude way, by simply calking the cracks with 

 straw. 



Kor is it a very wasteful way of storing wheat, if the pen is built upon a 

 hard-beaten spot, where all the grain can be swept up when the pen is 

 emptied. 



We have also seen corn put uj) iu rail-pens without any covering, and 

 kept through the winter without damage, the ears being simply rounded up 

 on top. "We have often been told liy those who have had a good deal of 

 experience in storing corn in this way, that rain docs not hurt it — all that 

 docs not run through dries out the first windy day. "Wheat in tlie ciiaff will 

 not injure in a long rain-storm, when simj)ly piled in a conical heap, if it 

 does not wet at the bottom. 



Great boat-loads of 131ack Sea wheat are brought down long rivers, being 

 many weeks on the passage, witliout any covering. The wheat is rounded 

 up in tlie center, somewhat in the form of a roof, and the outside gets wet 

 and grows into a mat, sometimes two inches thick, and that shelters the mass 

 below. It does not strike us as an economical method, but that depends 

 upon circumstances, as it does in cribbing Indian-corn. It certainly never 

 would pay to build expensive cribs to store some of the great crops of the 

 "West; and it has been found good economy, for want of better storage, to 

 let the corn remain where it grew until wanted for use. Even with smaller 

 crops, it may not always be evidence of liad larniing where we see the corn 

 stand in shocks until wanted. It certainly keeps better there tiian it would 

 in a badly ventilated store-room. 



344. Stathfis for Stark Boltoms. — In Englaiul, it is not eonsideriHl good 

 economy ti> build l>aiiis ciioiigh to store all tlio grain, and it is therctore 

 stacked out. In this country, if economy warranted the j»ractico of storing 

 all under roofs, necessity would often forbid, and require our great croj>9 of 

 wheat to be put up in stacks. In Kiigliiud, upon well-coudueted farms, 

 where the practice of stacking prevails, the stathels for tlie stacks to rest 



