1877.] 
AMERICAN AGR IC ULT URIST. 
4:35 
The ladder rests at the bottom as^ainst a small fout- 
stage. At figure 3 the house is shown in sectiou, 
with the boat drawn up and hanging. The boat is 
raised by means of ropes and tackles, one for each 
end ; and as the boat is hoisted up, the ends of the 
rope are fastened to ring-bolts or cleats on the wall. 
It is easy to raise a boat in this manner by hoisting 
one end a few feet, and then the other end, making 
last each time, until the boat is high enough. 
An Ice-hous3 in tlie Barn. 
Many farmers fail to put up ice because they 
think an ice-house to be too costly for them. We 
here give a hint which we. received from a neigh- 
boring farmer, some years ago, as to putting up ice 
iu a comer of the barn, 
without anything more 
than a few boards and 
some sawdust. The 
coolest comer of the 
bam is set apart for the 
ice, and a board is nail- 
ed to the floor on each 
side of the corner, or 
across it, one of these 
should be just beneath 
a beam of the upper 
rough boards are tacked to the 
up to near the top. A 
Fig.l. PLAN OP ICE-HODSB. 
floor. Some 
posts of the barn wall, 
batten is then nailed to the floor, one inch from 
the board ; tins makes the foundation of which 
the ground plan is as shown at figure 1. If neces- 
Bary, a board is nailed up to the beams above, 
for the purpose soon to be described. The spaces, 
tf, a, are filled with sawdust. The ice is then packed 
in the space, bounded by the dotted lines, placing 
a foot of sawdust beneath it, and as it is put in, 
sawdust is packed around it. Tlie sawdust is kept 
in at the sides, b and c, by upright boards placed 
against those nailed to the floor and a beam above 
it, or the board nailed to tlie beams before men- 
tioned. These boards are thus kept iu their place. 
^Vheu all the ice is in, it is well covered on the top, 
a space for a door beiug left in the boarding above 
the ice. Then a second row of boai'ds is placed be- 
tween the boards on the floor and the battens, and 
fastened as may be convenient, a door space being 
made to match the inner one. The space between 
these boards may be filled with cut straw, sawdust, 
clover-chaff, or any other non-conducting material, 
up to the bight of the ice within. There is no need 
to close the door space ; it will be better to leave 
that open for ventilation. Figure 3 shows the out- 
Fig. 2.— VIEW OF ICE-HOUSE IN B.\RN. 
side of this ice-room as it appears from the bam 
floor. Such a place as this may be easily arranged 
in many bams ; our neighbor thus kept an ample 
supply of ice every season without losing by waste 
more than is usual in tlie best built ice-houses. 
Growing the White Birch on poor Land. 
As an instance of the profitable culture of poor 
lands, the business of growing white birch for (lie 
manufacture of thread sjiools, may be given. Birch 
timber is cut for this purpose when young, so that 
a plantation sometimes may not require more than 
four or five years to become profitable. Steep hill- 
sides, cold bleak mountaiu lands, or sandy valleys, 
will produce this timber. It is stated that the busi- 
ness of exporting white birch timber from an East- 
em State to Great Britain for this manufacture, has 
already begun. If there is a demand for it, we can 
supply all that is need- 
ed. But the strangest 
thing is, that we should 
ship abroad from Mew 
England a bulky raw 
material like this, in- 
stead of the finished ar- 
ticle, upon which the 
difference iu freight on- 
ly would give a good 
margin for profit. There 
arc thousands of pictu- 
resque valleys in New 
England, and elsewhere, 
upon the sides of which 
millions of birch trees 
may be grown, and down 
whose centers fiow rapid streams thatwould furnish 
power to drive the saws and lathes required to man- 
ufacture the trees into spools. It will not be many 
years before this will be added to the many other 
American Ipdtnsiries, and we may supply the world 
not only with thread spools, but with bobbins 
for spinning frames, and other kinds as well. 
Flan of a Dairy Barn. 
A cow bam that can be easily extended as the 
herd may be enlarged, will be found very convenient 
the doors being fastened back against the walL 
The upper floor is kept for hay, fodder, and feed ; 
these Ijcing ranged at each end, leaving the center 
open and free for cutting and mixing the feed. 
Here should be a fodder-cutter and a large mixing 
box, in the side of which should be a spout to carry 
a 
:1MI: 
Fig. 1. — PLAN OF DAIRY BARN. 
by mauy. The size of a herd is frequently restrict- 
ed by the accommodations afforded by the barn, 
and when an increase might otherwise be desirable, 
it is found objectionable on this account. It is not 
always possible to pull down one's bams to build 
larger, but when it is possible to add to them at 
either end, increased room can he gained with but 
little outlay. We herewith illustrate a dairy barn 
that can be extended to any desirable limits with- 
out changing the plan. In these days of steam, 
and all sorts of machinery, there is no difficulty iu 
using long narrow buildings, for, with the h.iy-fork 
and the hay-carrier, the forage can easily be stored 
in the longest barn and dropped wherever it is de- 
sired, without trouble, and by using a tram-road 
and light feed-cars, 300 cows can be fed from a 
central feed-room as easy as 30 can be fed iu the 
old-fashioned manner. Figure 1 is the plan of a 
cow barn that wiU be found as convenient for a 
small herd of 30 or 30 cows, as for one of ten times 
that number. The building msiy be 24 or 43 feet 
wide. The plan shown is 43 feet in width, and ac- 
commodates two double rows of cows. It room 
for only one double row is desired, 34 feet will be 
amply wide. In the plan, there is a central passage 
for feeding, 6 feet wide, with a tr.ira road-way laid 
down in it. On each side of this, are the double 
rows of stalls, with a feed-trough for each. The 
floors on which the cows stand are 7 feet wide, 
which gives room for a gutter behind eacli row, and 
for a four foot wide fccd-trongh, divided length- 
wise into two, e.ich part being two feet wide, by a 
sufficiently high partition. The feed is easily 
thrown into these troughs from the central passaire, 
aloni; which the feed-car can he drawn by a small 
horse, or be pnshed by a man. A-turn-table is pri> 
vided in the center of the passage, to admit of a 
car being brought from the wash-liousc in tlie roar 
with emp:-- m'-'k-cans, or to the milU-housc with 
the full ones after milkinsr. The door-ways arc 
made very capacious, and the doors arc double ; 
the door-ways may be left open during the summer, 
8. — VDEW OF DAIBT EARS. 
the feed to the car on the floor below. If the food 
is steamed, the boiler can be kept in a rear build- 
ing, not sho^NTi on the plan, the steam being carried 
to an engine, which would work the fodder-cutter, 
and the steamer, both on the upper floor. This 
would be preferable to having the boiler in the 
main building, and would avoid much risk from 
fire. At figure 3 is shown the elevation of the 
building. The central door above is for the ad- 
mission of feed to the bins ; a door is provided at 
each end for unloading fodder, a hay-fork and a 
hay-carrier being used for the unloading. There 
should he ample ventilation provided by means of 
shiifts, as shown, and these can also be utilized for 
dropping hay to the floor beneath. The plan 
here given will admit of much moditication ; It in 
thus broadly outlined to meet the wishes of many 
correspondents who desire this information. It is 
hardly possible for one plan to meet all cases ; bnt 
this will be found sufficiently suggestive and clear, 
we hope, to satisfy those who wish for a similar 
plan. When an extension is desired, it is only 
necessary to add a bent or two at each end, carry 
out the roof and floor, and remove the ends. 
A Dairy Ice-Honse. 
The rapidly extending use of the cold system of 
setting milk, heretofore described, will create a 
Fig. 1. FKONT ELEVATION OF DAIRY AND ICE HOUSE. 
necessity tor convenient and compact dairy rooms, 
with well and ice-chamber for use in the summer 
