194 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[May, 
the plants get too large for them. Not only 
will plants thus treated be much ahead of 
those without such protection, but they will 
also be largely preserved from the attacks of 
the “ striped bug ” so injurious to melons, cu¬ 
cumbers, and related plants, especially when 
wide, and 4 feet deep, is made with 4-inch 
posts, boarded on the inside with 1 by 6-inch 
boards, laid two inches apart ( x , figure 3), to 
allow the air to come in contact with the gal¬ 
vanized iron lining that covers the sides. 
The bottom of the ice box, /, consists of a 
young. Of course the use of these requires 
some attention, and the leaving off of the 
covers during a chilly night may undo all that 
has been done; but gardening requires atten¬ 
tion, and whoever has once used these or 
some similar covers will not give them up. 
Houghton Farm Dairy. 
The basement of a cottage situated on a 
hank near the cattle bam has been converted 
into a convenient Dairy, by building a one- 
story annex on the west side, the front of 
■which, on the level of the foot of the bank, 
forms the entrance. As the plan and inter¬ 
nal arrangements of the Dairy are entirely 
new, a detailed description is of interest. A 
view of the Cottage, with Dairy attached, is 
shown in figure 1. The Cold Room for set¬ 
ting milk is in the north end of the cottage 
basement, The ice box, 13 feet long, 3 feet 
grating of oak plank. Underneath this is a 
sloping floor of inch boards, g, covered with 
sheet zinc to carry off the water from the 
melting ice to a pipe at one end, which dis¬ 
charges into the drain. The circulation of air 
in the cold room is shown by the arrows in 
the sectional view in figure 3. The wall be¬ 
tween the Wash Room, c, figure 2, and the 
cold room, a, is of brick, in two sections. 
The upper one, projecting into the cold 
room, rests on a beam 8 by 8 inches square, 
supported on columns at the highth of 2 feet 
from the floor. The lower section of the 
wall is built from the floor on the wash room 
side, one foot back from the upper section, 
thus leaving a space be¬ 
tween the walls which 
is divided by partitions 
into squares of one foot 
each, through which the 
cans of milk are set di¬ 
rectly into the lowest 
stratum of the cold air 
of room a. The details 
are given in the section 
of the wall shown in 
figure 3. C is the cover 
of one compartment con¬ 
sisting of an inch board 
12 inches square, with a 
hole in the center to re¬ 
ceive the ventilating tube 
of the milk can, e. A lid, 
b, is hinged to a truss 
beam supporting the 
back wall, covering sev¬ 
eral of the spaces for set¬ 
ting milk cans. When 
b is turned up, it is fast¬ 
ened by the button, i. 
There is an air space, a, 
between the two covers communicating with 
the Churning Room by an inch glazed pipe at 
one end, and with the wash room by a sim¬ 
ilar pipe at the other end, as shown on ground 
plan, figure 2. The door between the wash 
room and churning room, and the double 
Fig. 2. —PLAN OF BASEMENT OF THE COTTAGE AND DAIRY. 
doors between the churning room and cold 
room, g, are made as shown in figure 4. 
Above the door is- a 6-inch opening closed by 
a valve that can be adjusted to regulate the 
passage of the warmer strata of air from one 
room to another, while at the bottom of the 
door is a similar opening with a valve to 
regulate the passage of the lower or cooler 
stratum of air. 
By means of these ventilators the temper¬ 
ature of the churning room can be readily 
controlled by admitting warm air from the 
wash room by the upper register to raise 
the temperature, while the cooler air of the 
churning room passes through the lower- 
valve to the wash room. To lower the tem¬ 
perature of the churning room, *he venti¬ 
lators opening into the cold room are used, 
in a similar manner. In the wash room the 
stove, size 3, with boiler for hot water, is 
in the middle of the room; the pipe, l, is 
connected with the flue in the chimney at 
k. The sink, n, is used for washing utensils* 
the water being discharged by a pipe inte 
the drain, r. At o is a table, and p, p, p, are 
ranges of shelves. The cold room, with its 
supply of ice, can be kept at a temperature of 
40° to 45°, where the milk is set, while the 
churning room can be kept at 60° to 65°, or 
the proper temperature for churning. In the 
ceiling of the wash room is a ventilator* 
one foot square, the outlet of which is shown 
on the roof in the elevation, figure 1. The 
milk, when brought from the bam, is taken 
to the wash room and immediately placed 
in the cold room by means of the lid. 
Fig. 3.— SECTION OF ICE BOX AND COOL ROOM. 
in the partition wall, without opening the 
door to allow the cold air to escape. The 
cream rises in 12 to 18 hours, and the cana 
may be taken up through the opening and 
carried to the churning room with¬ 
out opening the cold room, or if 
more room is needed, they may be 
set back on the floor of the cold 
room, and other cans may be put 
in from the wash room. In the 
inner door of the cold room, figure 4, 
is a light of glass, with a shelf on 
the outside, on which a lamp may 
be placed to throw light into the cold roomi 
whenever any work is to be done there. 
Aslies and. Plaster.— The works on 
gardening of the last generation said nothing 
about guano and other fertilizers, as these 
were unknown to them. They very gener¬ 
ally advised the use of “ash compost,” made 
of equal parts of sifted, unleached Wood 
Ashes and Gypsum or Land Plaster. Old 
fashioned as this may be, it is a capital thing 
to have on hand. It, of course, should be 
kept under cover and perfectly dry. When 
squashes, melons, or any others of the family 
first break ground, give them a dusting of 
this mixture of ash-compost. This will pro¬ 
tect the young plants from the “ striped bug,” 
and its use may be continued with advantage 
until the vines get so strong as not to cars 
for this enemy. As a top-dressing to almost 
any garden crop, it will be found beneficiaL- 
Fig.4. 
