126 Barn Construction. 



MANURE SHED. 



Where and when it is impracticable to deliver the 

 manure directly from the wagon or manure-spreader 

 to the field, it is quite essential that some provision 

 should be made either to compost or cover it. 



A very inexpensive manure shed on a grain farm 

 may be built by setting some large posts in the 

 ground where the straw-stack is usually built. Saw 

 the tops of the posts off level, and on them place 

 timbers flattened on both sides, and on these timbers 

 place poles, old rails, or boards, and on top of this 

 build the straw stack. I had such a manure shed at 

 my Maple Lane farm, and found it a great conven- 

 ience, as it made also a splendid place to turn the 

 cows in weather too bad for them to be outside. 

 Three men cut the necessary timbers in my own 

 woods, and completed the work in three days. It was 

 about one hundred feet by eighty feet. The posts 

 were sixteen to eighteen inches in diameter, and set 

 about three feet deep in the ground. It answered 

 the purpose beautifully, and I would never want to 

 be without such an arrangement on a grain farm. 

 Professor Roberts, of the Cornell University, tells 

 us that the waste in manure in an open barnyard is 

 from forty to sixty per cent. 



If there is a stone-wall basement under your barn, 

 it can be utilized to good advantage as a manure- 

 shed, for that is really, in my judgment, the best 

 use for a basement of this kind. The principal ex- 

 pense for such a shed is the roof. I have had con- 



