BARNS AND STABLES. 



43 



liay. A slatted ventilator is built directly over it on the roof; and a 

 valve at the lower extremity may be wholly or partially closed, 

 whenever the inclemency of the weather requires it. 



There are many fonns of hay-racks and feed-troughs. Several 

 styles of iron fixtures are convenient and durable. But the worst 

 form is the old fashioned overhead hay-rack. It is wholly incon- 

 sistent with the habits and structure of the horse, which in a state of 

 nature does not, like a giraffe, take its food fi'om trees, but from the 

 ground. Besides the unnatural strain caused by reaching up to a 

 high rack, the dust hay seed and chaff are drawn into the throat, 

 lungs and eyes of the horse. The rack shown in figure 28 is cheaply 

 built, and free from all the objections to a high rack. The vertical slats 

 are four feet long, of any tough hard wood. Saphngs with the bark 

 on are as good as anything. The ends, tapered off to the proper size, 



imr-. 



Fig. 29. — ^PERSPECTrVB VIEW OP SMAIX BASS. 



are set into holes bored in scantlings. The lower side of the rack is 

 sixteen inches above the floor. The opposite side is boarded up as 

 shown. The bottom of the rack is of slats, two inches apart, to allow 

 the escape of dust and seeds. Easting on the floor below the rack is 

 a trough for oats or other feed. This is ten inches deep, and of any 

 desired width and length. It is drawn out to be filled, and then 

 pushed back within reach of the horse. Instead of this a permanent 

 feed-box may be made at one end of the rack, a few slats being left 

 out for the purpose. The hay-shute opens directly into the rack. 



The perspective view and plan shown in figures 39 and 30 are 

 of a very cheap and plain bam of the simplest style. The upright 

 part is fourteen feet wide by sixteen long, with sixteen-foot posts. 

 The lean-to is ten feet wide, sixteen long, and eight feet high at the 

 eaves. The sills all around rest upon piers of field stone, or in their 

 iiViRence. on cedar blocks set below the frost line. The first floor, 



