ALASKA EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 249 



work on it is sufficiently advanced so that it is in use. The lower 

 story is intended to be used for a stable, for the housing of imple- 

 ments, and a tool room for hand tools. The second story is designed 

 to be used exclusively for the storing and handling of grain. To this 

 end it is provided with a tight floor and, as may be seen in the illustra- 

 tion, there are large doors on both sides. These doors are intended to 

 provide a free circulation of air, so the barn floor can be used as a 

 place to dry grain in the protracted rainy season. It is a bank barn, 

 with a driveway on the north side about 6 feet higher than the floor 

 of the lower story. This facilitates the unloading of grain in the second 

 story. It will be seen that it is connected with the silo, which is filled 

 from the same driveway. 



BUILDING A FARM COTTAGE. 



PI. VIII, fig. 2, illustrates a little two-story cottage which has 

 been built on the farm in order to enable a man to live permanently 

 on the place. The interests of the work require that there be con- 

 stantly someone on the farm. The building is 30 by 14 feet, and when 

 completed it will have two rooms and a kitchen below and two rooms 

 above. 



Both the barn and the cottage were built by Assistant Rader with 

 such help as was hired on the farm. The financial outlay for these 

 buildings amounts to little more than the price of the materials. 



DBAINAGE. 



In former reports attention was called to the necessity for thorough 

 underdrainage of all low-lying ground, and also to the fact that por- 

 tions of the cleared land had been underdrained with brush drains; 

 that is, the ditches were filled with small brush, carefully packed in at 

 an angle, and in such a way as to leave interstices through which the 

 water can pass. These drains have given satisfaction so far. Their 

 durability is the only doubtful point. 



I believe we have discovered an improvement on the brush drain by 

 the partial substitution of slabs for brush. Slabs are the first, or out- 

 side, cut of logs which are cut up for lumber in the sawmills. These 

 slabs can be had very cheaply. They have been obtained in the past 

 for 50 cents a load of about twenty-five pieces. When the bottom of 

 the ditch is in firm ground, two slabs set on edge and leaned against 

 each other in the form of an A will make a good conduit for the water. 

 The two pieces are held securely together by a nail here and there 

 where the two edges meet, and there will always be abundant openings 

 for the water to get through. On top of this conduit are packed, first, 

 poles, then coarse brush, and, finally, smaller brush, and on top of the 

 brush, first sod and then earth. The materials cost but little for a 

 drain of this kind; it is chiefly a matter of labor. 



