1859. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



471 



horses usually on the farm, would they not be 

 quite likely to be idle if they were not in the ma- 

 chine ? Suppose, also, that you or your father, 

 are in feeble health, or have seen too many hay- 

 ing seasons to swing the scythe with two or 

 three rugged men — perhaps Irishmen — cnuld you 

 not guide these horses, hitched to the machine, 

 and cut five or six acres a day, when you and the 

 horses would not otherwise have cut a single 

 swath? And pursuing this course, would you 

 not have done more towards securing your hay 

 harvest than any three men could have done ? 

 There is no doubt of it. There are several oth- 

 er reasons just as applicable as this, why we 

 should use a mowing machine, and other labor- 

 saving machines and implements; but we must 

 exercise the same good judgment in their selec- 

 tion and use that guides us in other important 

 matters. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 HOW SHALL "WE BUILD OUS BARNS ? 



To answer this important question, we must 

 first consider the objects to be had in view, in 

 building a barn at all. The most important one 

 certainly is stowage ; the next is a convenient sta- 

 ble for domestic animals ; and lastly, a manufac- 

 tory of manure. A building that provides for all 

 of these in the best and most convenient manner, 

 and to the greatest extent for the original cost, 

 and at the least outlay for future repairs, will be 

 the best barn, and a great desideratum to the ag- 

 ricultural community. 



The form most commonly used with us, is a 

 building from forty to fifty feet in width, with a 

 barn floor or drive-way running length-wise 

 through the centre, and having stalls or cattle- 

 house on one side, with mows for hay, &c., on the 

 other. This makes a convenient stable, but sac- 

 rifices to this convenience both the other requi- 

 sites of a good barn. The floor or drive way, is 

 very expensive to build and occupies the centre 

 of the building, where is the largest and best 

 place for stowage, and gives a cold and unneces- 

 sary space, which can only be partially used at 

 any time. The very small amount of convenient 

 room for keeping hay, grain, roots, straw, corn- 

 stalks, and refuse for bedding animals and com- 

 posting with manure in proportion to the space 

 enclosed and roofed over, is the great objection 

 to this farm of barn, and unless the ground on 

 which it stands enables one to put a cellar under 

 it, there is no possible opportunity to manufac- 

 ture manure. It must be, and always is, thrown 

 out through windows to waste its strength, and 

 become a nuisance in a muddy yard. The liquid 

 portions are also lost entirely, unless expensive 

 and troublesome means are provided to save 

 them. A cellar will remedy these defects, where 

 it can be had ; but it is at best an ugly, inconve- 

 nient, costly and dangerous afli'air ; and should 

 never be used on a farm. 



The digging and stoning a cellar, and building 

 a floor over it, sufficiently strong to be safe, will 

 cost as much as a good barn ought to cost, with 

 ten times the convenience for making and saving- 



manure. We say, then, that the most approved 

 form of barn in common use in New England is 

 sadly defective in at least two of the essential re- 

 quisites of a good barn ; and that the expensive 

 addition of a cellar is not the improvement 

 wanted to get a good barn. 



Again, our common barn is generally built 

 about fifteen feet high from the floor to the 

 eaves, v/ith a roof rising at an angle of forty-five 

 degrees. This is, perhaps, as high as hay can be 

 pitched by hand ; but just look at the enormous 

 roof required in this style of building ! The roof, 

 too, costing the most of any part of the barn 

 originally, and requiring expensive removal every 

 twenty or thirty years ! 



In the first place, it is one-th ird larger than 

 would be necessary to cover the building ; the 

 most of its enclosed space is entirely lost for all 

 purposes of stowage, being directly over the floor 

 or drive-way ; and the walls are so low that but 

 little of the bulky products of a form can find 

 room for themselves, without extending the • 

 building to the dimensions of a whole block of 

 city warehouses. 



Some few barns are built narrower, and have 

 a lintel or lean to, for the cattle. But this re- 

 quires an additional roof, with no room for stow- 

 age under it whatever. In our cold climate, and 

 with the coi-tly and perishable materials used in 

 building, we must inclose no Avaste spaces ; and 

 should expose the smallest possible surface of 

 roof. This may be accomplished as it is done in 

 warehouses in the cities ; by flat roofs and high 

 walls, and now that we have the horse pitchfork, 

 the objection to high mows is entirely done away 

 with. The hay can be thrown up thirty feet, as 

 easily as it can be carried up ten ; and its expo- 

 sure to dust and ofiensive effluvia much reduced, 

 by its compactness and small external surface. 



There is a plan of a huge barn given by L. F. 

 Allen, which has been widely recommended in 

 our agricultural books and papers ; and in my 

 judgment embraces all the faults of our common 

 New England barn, with several additional er- 

 rors, strangely palpable. In the first place, he 

 has 12,512 square feet of roof surface, on a barn 

 100 by 50, with a sixteen feet lean-to on three 

 sides — more than enough to cover a building 110 

 feet square ! and he gets only stowage room 

 enough for about 170 tons of hay under this im- 

 mense roof. In fact, he says that he has put in- 

 to the barn 150 tons at a time, "and that it will 

 hold even more, if thoroughly packed." But put 

 the same roof over a barn 110 feet square, with 

 v-falls thirty feet high, and you will have ample 

 room for 500 tons, besides the requisite space for 

 the cattle, and for the machinery to be used in 

 preparing their food, and for manufacturing any 

 desirable amount of manure. 



But he raises the whole of his barn, except the 

 lintels, four feet from the ground ! For what 

 possible reason ? Every thing has to be hauled 

 up thai distance, over inconvenient inclined 

 planes, and the whole space, sufficient to store 50 

 tons of hay, after being roofed over, is thrown 

 away by building costly floors, for no possible 

 purpose whatever ! 



And this is another error uniformly adopted in 

 our barns. Why should we have floors in our 

 barns, kept up a few feet from the ground, by 

 heavy timbers, that are continually rotting away, 



