204 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



squares of five or six feet, while others feed from the whole of the mow, 

 containing, iu some instances, five or six hundred square feet of surface." 



Mr. Wm. S. Carpenter said: All my experience favors feeding from as small 

 a surface of the mow as possible, and to save the labor of cutting down the 

 mow, I have adopted the plan of stowing the hay in divisions, by setting up 

 boards and filling one compartment at a time. Mr. Fuller inquired what 

 be would do if the hay was stacked, and Mr. Carpenter replied that he 

 would not put hay or grain in stacks; was a wasteful way of stoi*- 

 ing it, which no farmer could afford, and which no good farmer would 

 practice. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — I take issue with the gentleman upon that poinis. 

 Good farmers do stack hay and grain, and good farmers can afford to dp 

 so. In new settlements stacking is absolutely necessary. In old farming 

 regions, as old as England, it is practiced upon economical principles, but 

 stacks are not left to waste as they are here upon the surface, but are pro- 

 tected by a thatch that sheds rain equal to a roof. It is an error to teach 

 farmers that it is bad economy to build stacks. It is not economy to allow 

 them to stand exposed to the weather. It is not economy to uncover a 

 stack to feed it out. It should be cut down, a third or half at a time. It 

 is just as easy to make sheds to shelter cattle to be fed from the stack as 

 from the barn. It is true that hay is stacked and fed in a slovenly way, 

 but that is no argument against the system, which must be practiced by 

 nine-tenths of the people in newly settled countries, like the Western prai*- 

 lies, and if stacking is well done it may be practiced with profit in old dis- 

 tricts. 



The Chairman thought there were certainly two sides to this question of 

 stacking, and that farmers might be benefitted by discussion. For his 

 part, he thought there were many things in favor of stacking. It certainly 

 saves a great outlay for building material. 



Mr. Pitt, an English farmer. — I am a stacking man. It is nearly a uni- 

 versal custom in England and Scotland to stack grain in the open air. Our 

 climate is more uncertain than it is here. We have more humid weather 

 there. As to housing wheat, it is generally thought that such grain has 

 a musty smell. In Silesia I have seen stacks of grain that have been 

 made for ten years, and had to be rethatched after the first had decayed. 



The Barometer as a Farm Implement. 



Mr. Solon Robinson. — The same writer who started the question wo have 

 just been talking about, wants the Club to discuss the following question: 

 " The benefits that would result to the farmer from having a barometer for 

 the purpose of foretelling the weather, so as to avoid loss by crops or farm 

 products being exposed to storms when they might be secured, had the 

 owners something to indicate to him the changes in the weather." Exactly 

 so. If he had such an implement he would undoubtedly avoid loss very 

 often. The question is not whether such a weather indicator would be 

 beneficial, but whether such a thing can be obtained. We have discussed 

 this barometer question enough, I should think, to satiate every reader of 



