CATTLE, HOW TO SHELTER. 
169 
will be trodden so hard as to ferment very little. hen a lot of cattle 
are sold, then wagons may be driven through to carry off manure. I 
have seen cattle fed in this manner, carded daily, and kept quite clean, 
standing on their manure for four months. 
These feeding floors, as described, stretch through the whole length of 
the barn. A feeding car passes through two wings, and, having a turn- 
table, may pass through any wing. Feed may be dropped through a 
chute on the side of the upper floor into the car wherever placed on any 
feeding floor. This form of barn gives every facility for cutting and 
cooking the food — a larger engine, placed in the center, cutting, grinding 
and cooking all the food ; and this also offers the best facility for soiling 
three thousand head in Summer, if such should be necessary. In the 
West, however, where only the feeding of such large numbers of cattle 
would be profitable, soiling is out of the question. 
Adapting Means to the End. 
No person can possibly know so well what an individual wants a3 
himself, if he be a reflecting man. The architect scarcely ever gives 
attention to the planning of barns. The best barns in a country are 
those of intelligent farmers who have carefully observed the conveniences 
of various kinds in the barns of their friends in the localities visited, and 
who when in building their own varied them to suit their own wants. 
For this reason we have simply given outlines of those illustrated with 
descriptions of others adapted to various numbers of cattle. See pp. 588, 
590, 591. To give the cost would be a waste of space that may be better 
employed. This will vary with locality and the price of material, and 
any master carpenter or mason will quickly estimate them. As a rule, 
the elaborate and well furnished structure is not the most convenient 
one, but those which kavo the greatest number of permanent conven- 
iences, and in which the space is most thoroughly economized. Hence 
within the last few years, or since the general introduction of improved 
machinery, farm barns have undergone a complete change in the manner 
of construction. 
Formerly barns were comparatively low structures where everything had 
to be done by manual labor; it was not economy to pile up hay, grain, 
or other farm produce, story after story ; the labor of lifting, or carrying 
did not pay. Since the invention of hoisting machines and hay carriers, 
the invention of modern windmills, grinding mills, horse powers and 
other labor-saving machinery, twenty-five feet posts are not unusual, and 
no barn should be built of less than two stories. The gain thus secured is 
abundantly worth what it costs. 
