320 



THE FARMERY. 



[Chap. III. 



\ipon arc permanent structures. Some of tlifiii are made witli stone jiillars 

 ami caps ; and some with a wooden frame on stone ])illars ; and in some in- 

 stances iron has been substituted for wood. The stack being elevated a foot 

 or two, allows a circulation of air, and very much assists the curing of the 

 grain. We recommend farmers, wlierever they are in tlio regular practice 

 of staclving hay and grain, to have a permanent stack j'ard, jjrovided with 

 stack bottoms, after tlic English fashion. Even for temporary stacking, 

 building the stack npon the ground is a very wasteful practice. 'SYc have 

 seen stacks upon the "Western prairie built in a spot, dry at tlic time, become 

 saturated with water, and half rotted two feet above the ground, before they 

 were used up in winter. For a temporary stack bottom, tlicre is notliing 

 more convenient than fence-rails. Wc have built long M'lieat-ricks on tlie 

 prairie in this way. "\Ve took fence-rails and laid them up as though IniiUI- 

 iiig a worm fence, pretty straight, in two lines about two foct a]iart at the 

 bottom, and about four rails higii, leaning inward so that the two lines of 

 fence touch. Against this upon each side the sheaves were set witii butts 

 on the ground, leaning toward the center until a sufficient bottom for tlic 

 rick \vas formed. This leaves an air-pipe through tlie bottom, and keeps all 

 tlie heads from the gi-onnd, and altliough the water stood some inches deep 

 in a wet time over the spongy soil, all the wheat came out bright and sound. 

 The butts of the lower sheaves only were rotted. The fence sustained tiie 

 greatest weight of the rick, besides giving it air. 



345. The I'ifTgcry. — No farmery is complete without a well-arranged pig- 

 gery, wliicli consists of a grain-room, a root cellar, a cooking-room, a feeding- 

 room, a sleeping-room — all under cover. All this is requisite upon a farm 

 where only two or three pigs are fotted annually. It is still more requisite 

 wliere a dozen or more pigs are kept — where the leading object of the farmer 

 is to convert coarse farm products into pork ; except wliere ]n'gs are wliolly 

 fatted in cornhelds, as at the West. Ui^on all other farms a well-arranged 

 piggery is indispensable, and, as we have shown in Section 11, that cooking 

 food for pigs is advantageous, the greater the conveniences for cooking, the 

 more profitable will be the feeding. 



The best arranged piggery we ever saw for convenience and saving of la- 

 bor was built npon the side of a Vermont hill, where potatoes were a lead- 

 ing article in the manufacture of pork. The potatoes were stored in a cave 

 cellar, from which they were shoveled upon a screen, over which they rolled 

 to the large potash-kettle set in an arch some twenty or thirty feet distant. 

 Generally the potatoes thus screened needed no washing; if they did, i)ro- 

 vision was made for doing it by a copious stream of water let on as they 

 traversed the screen. The water was let into the kettle from the source sup- 

 plying the washing water. The floor where the kettle stood contained bins 

 for meal, which were filled from the bags emptied into a spout on the out- 

 side. Tlie cooked food was shoveled from the kettle into a hopper that 

 conducted it into a cooling-trough on the floor below, which stood high 

 enough to allow the swill to run throuirh a long conductor to the feed- 



