Our Barn. 259 



not all. We have a slate roof on house, and would again, as it 

 makes the cistern water nicer, but they are constantly cracking or 

 blowing off. I had a slater put on twenty-eight new ones not 

 long since. You must not have anyone fooling on a slate roof ; 

 in fact, it should never be gone on at all. And it is far warmer 

 under a slate roof when the sun shines. For this reason alone I 

 would not have a slate roof on my barn. It is too warm to mow 

 away under. 



We find it a great convenience having our barn buildings 

 altogether in this way. There is no running from one to another. 

 When we get inside in the winter everything is there under the 

 one set of roofs. I know men who have their horse barn, tool 

 house and cattle barn, each a separate building, and granary, 

 too, and some distance apart. This is not handy, certainly, but 

 in case of fire they might not lose but the one building. I know 

 no other advantage. They keep insured, probably, the same as I 

 do. If I burned out it would be a total loss of everything 

 more to be rebuilt, that is all. But the chances of a barn burn- 

 ing being not one in five hundred on the average, and probably 

 not one in a thousand, as I manage, I will keep well insured, and 

 take the risk of a serious fire when I have one. As it costs less 

 than two and one-half cents a day to insure me $4,700 on barn 

 and contents, I cannot afford to waste my time by having build- 

 ings apart, not if I could thus take my own risk and save all 

 insurance. I^ife is too short to have things unhandy. 



My barn was built exactly as we wanted for our business of 

 raising potatoes and wheat, and keeping our horses and cow ; but 

 as one never knows when he may want to change, or sell out to 

 someone who would want to keep stock, the barn was planned 

 with this in view. By simply adding an 1 8-foot bent en the west 

 end of main barn, or a lean-to of that width, we would have a 

 long stable in the rear 78 feet long, and another on the west end 

 18x30 for box-stalls for calves, bull, pigs, etc., and a silo could 

 be built nicely in front of the addition. Thus we could readily 

 change, growing ensilage corn instead of potatoes, and keep 

 twenty-five, thirty, or more Jerseys in the most comfortable 

 shape. The stables are lined with i^-inch matched flooring on 

 the inside of girts, and even the doors are lined up halfway, so it 

 never freezes in the basement. , The long stable is on the south 

 side, with large windows to let in sunshine, a perfect place for 

 cattle. A little expense would turn the barn into model quarters 

 for a winter dairy of twenty cows. In case I kept cattle, I 

 should put a small door into feeding alley in H from the covered 

 barnyard. Now we go in through one of the large doors. The 

 entrance to barn floor from the bridge is through a small door in 

 the large one (about 2x6^ feet), and on this is the combination 

 lock. The natural place for us to enter barn from our house is 

 through tool house. We have a gravel walk from house to tool 



