206 How THE FARM PATS. 



bottom, so that the cows are fastened securely and quickly, thus doing 

 away with chains and halters. The second floor of the barn being 

 seven and one half feet high gives ample room for ventilation, and this 

 floor will hold seventy-five tons of hay. 



On the east side of the square, running north and south, is another 

 stable 100 feet long. This is eight feet high, built of cedar posts and 

 rough boards, and contains ten box stalls; a few of them, of larger 

 size, are used for the bulls. The others are eight by ten, and are 

 used for cows at calving times. In front is the feeding manger or 

 trough. In front of this is a walk of four feet, where the feed is 

 supplied to the manger. The roof is made with heavy timbers and 

 rough boards. On this are built the stacks of corn fodder, or corn 

 stalks, to a height of about fourteen feet. The stack is built over the 

 sides of the stable some two feet. It is made so as to run to a sharp 

 ridge at the top. In this way we get a stack of corn fodder 100 

 feet in length, sixteen feet wide and an average height of tc 11 feet, 

 which probably contains seventy-five or eighty tons, thus serving 

 the purposes of a roof, and a convenient place to stack fodder 

 during the winter. When the corn fodder is fed off, the board roof 

 of course carries off the water. 



On the side of the square facing north is the main barn for horses, 

 running east and west. In this barn are the hay-lofts, threshing 

 machine, room for tools, seed room, offices, etc. ; here too is the horse 

 power for two or four horses, as may be required. With this we pulp 

 the roots, cut corn fodder, etc. On the west side of the square run- 

 ning north and south is another stable seventy feet long, twenty feet 

 wide and fourteen foot posts, which contains calf boxes, sbeep pens 

 and pig pens, and at the south-west corner the dairy. By this man- 

 ner of erecting the building I get a hollow square containing a quar- 

 ter of an acre, which not only affords a shelter for the animals, and 

 is convenient for harnessing, and all other barn-yard work, but it 

 keeps the whole building under the eye of the owner. This is a 

 very important matter, because he can take a run out, the coldest 

 night, around the whole place of nearly 600 feet in a few minutes, 

 and see that everything is in proper condition; whereas if the barns 

 were scattered about, as they often are, it would take greater time to 

 make this round of inspection, and would be attended by more expo- 

 sure, for in this court there is shelter no matter how the wind blows. 

 Another advantage in this manner of building the barns, is that the 

 rears are all placed so that no doors open to the outside, which not 

 only affords security against the possibility of the animals breaking 

 loose in the night, and getting out, but also prevents the chance of 

 tramps getting into the stables or barns, and housing for the night, 



