THE EMIGRANT'S HAND-BOOK. 101 



from their foes, winged or four-footed, elevate it on posts 

 two and a half or three feet above the ground, with a hole 

 underneath through the floor, for them to enter. No animal 

 will jump up into it, or owl or hawk find the way in. I have 

 known flocks of hens destroyed in a few nights by the 

 mink, in roosts built upon the ground, in the ordinary 

 manner. 



BUILD BARNS. 



A barn will pay for itself in about two years in this 

 way : you save ten dollars worth of manure, you save 

 twenty dollars worth of fodder, and you save about fifty 

 dollars worth of grain from rotting and wasting from being 

 threshed on the ground, in a year. In two years this 

 amounts to one hundred and sixty dollars, which will build 

 a barn thirty feet by forty. Not only this, it adds a great 

 deal to the comfort of your stock to be kept in a warm 

 barn, in a cold winter night. Neither does it require so 

 much fodder for your cattle when they are kept warm, 

 which is another great saving. 



ICE HOUSES. 



There is an indifferent, good, better, and best way of 

 doing everything ; and judging from the success of ice- 

 keepers, we should suppose the mode of constructing ice- 

 houses had not uniformly been adopted in this country. 

 It is very often the case, that ice is not kept beyond mid- 

 summer. This is owing, in every instance, to the want 

 of requisite information in building houses of materials 

 which are not too great conductors of heat. In beginning 

 to build, it is not only necessary to " count the cost," but 

 it is very important for every one to ask himself, what he 

 wishes to accomplish before he commences, lest his labor 

 be lost. The common plan is, to dig in the earth some 



