202 



THE DOMESTIC SHEEP. 



OCTAGONAL BARN. 



of floor. It is easier, however, to build an octagonal barn 

 than a round one, for the timbers are much more easily 

 put together, and the structure is much stronger; each corner 

 binding the whole in an equally solid manner; in truth, 

 more so, than in the round one or the square. The plan 

 here given is one of 96 feet of wall, that is, twelve feet on 



each side, by which there is 

 room for nine places for feed- 

 ing on each side, thus giving 

 accommodation for a large 

 flock if several feeding racks 

 are scattered about between 

 the middle rack and the outer 

 ones. It is well adapted 

 to lamb rearing, on account 

 of the number of small pens 

 which may be made large 

 enough for a ewe and its lamb 

 or for two or three lambs, the 

 middle space being used for 

 feeding the lambs by turning them out when the ewes are 

 brought in to suckle them. A barn built on this plan may 

 have two floors, by which the capacity is doubled at a very 

 small increased cost, the main, floor being three feet below 

 the surface and the upper one four feet above, and being 

 reached by a plank walk at each door. It is to be noted that 

 the capacity of such a barn as this is increased four times 

 by doubling the diameter, and one-half increase in this, that 

 is, from twenty-nine or thirty feet to forty-five, will make it 

 two and a half times as capacious. 



The method of building such a barn is much cheaper 

 than that of the square or oblong form. The floor should 

 be of cement concrete, and it is best to have the foundation 

 for the sills of the same material, but it need not be over 

 six inches thick, merely to raise the timbers from the ground. 

 The sills may not be over four inches thick, and eight wide 

 is sufficient. The corners are merely halved together and 

 bolted with a one-inch iron bolt. The scantling for the 

 walls for the two floors should be six by two inches, and a 

 row of these is placed in the middle of the building and 

 rest on posts six inches square. There is a central shoot 



