Jt/.ij, 1858. 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
201 
Farm Buildings. . • -V- 
PIGGERY, AND POULTRY HOUSES. 
We have combined these separate accommo¬ 
dations into a single building, because they are so 
intimately connected in their feeding arrange¬ 
ments as to promote both their convenience and 
economy. 
The elevation shows a building, the upright 
part of which is 32 feet square, with 14 feet posts 
from the sill to the plate. The ground story is 
8 feet high, and the chamber 5 feet under the 
eaves. The front door enters a room, or area, 
12x24 feet, in which is placed a furnace, or stove, 
with a large boiler, and vat if necessary, for 
cooking food. The pipe of the furnace leads into 
next the eaves is a pig¬ 
eon house, arranged as 
we have described it 
elsewhere, and which 
we here insert to show 
that the birds can be 
placed here if necessary. 
Over the whole is a 
broad, hanging roof of a 
third pitch, or 11 feet 
elevation over the up¬ 
right part, or piggery, and 
a quarter, or 7 feet pitch 
over the poultry house. 
On the East or South front, as may be, are three 
large glass windows to give abundant light, and 
sun to the fowls in cold weather, and a stove may 
be placed there, if necessary to warm it, with the 
pipe leading into the chimney through the par¬ 
tition above. 
We have thus connected the poultry house 
with the piggery, that the fowls may be fed with 
cooked, and warm food as the pigs are, believing 
that it is quite as economical for one, as the other— 
particularly in fatting them. If necessary, one 
or two of the pig-styes can be slatted, up to the 
chamber floor, and turkeys, chickens or geese, 
put in for feeding, and the whole thing done under 
one and the same operation. We know that one- 
third of their food can be saved by cooking, and 
that they will fatten in two-thirds the time required 
when fed on whole grain ; and if any considerable 
number are kept, the saving will be important. 
An ample yard, with a high picket fence, can he 
thrown from the poultry side of the building. 
PIGEON HOUSE. 
This is a very cheap and simple elevation and 
floor plan, yet susceptible of any degree of archi¬ 
tectural ornament that may be given it. We give 
the plan only, with a description of its arrange¬ 
ment, from which our readers can determine the 
extent of the size, and accomodation they choose. 
the chimney above, which rests on the chamber 
floor, and is entered through a crock, or thimble. 
On the sides are styes for the pigs, with a small 
sliding entrance door, and feeding trough to each 
and a passage leading through the back side to a 
yard in the rear, where the swine can be turned at 
pleasure. Over the whole is the loft for depos¬ 
iting feed, as core, or other grains, meal, &c., 
and a trap-door immediately over the vat, or boil¬ 
er, into which it may be thrown through a spout, 
for cooking—our belief being that cooking food is 
by far the most economical way of expending it. 
The windows, as shown in the plan, give suffi¬ 
cient light; or some of them on the sides may be 
dispensed with, and sliding board windows sub¬ 
stituted to ventilate the room, and pass out the 
offal from the pens. Over the chamber door is 
a tackle-beam for hoisting bags from the wagon or 
cart below, to save carrying them up the stairs 
inside, thus making the accommodation complete. 
Tt is scarcely necessary to say that the pens inside 
can be changed to any size, larger, or smaller 
which convenience may demand ; or that the 
size of the whole building may be increased, or 
contracted—the plan or principle of its construc¬ 
tion being the main thing submitted. 
Next the piggery partition is the poultry house, 
i4 feet wide, with a feeding box in the front room, 
tiers of laying boxes on the side, and end, and a 
rear room for roosting bars, or poles. A floor may 
be over head, or not, as may be convenient. If 
so, it is 7 feet, above the sills, and may be occu¬ 
pied for laying, roosting, or other purposes con¬ 
nected with their accommodation. In the front. ' 
Fig. 15- PIGEON-HOUSE-ELEVATION. 
Four posts of durable wood, six or eight inches 
square, and planted firmly three to four feet in the 
ground, and six to eight feet apart, according to 
the size of the house, and twelve to fourteen feet 
high. Seven feet above 
the ground, four sills, 6 
inches square, are mor¬ 
ticed into the posts, and 
four morticed caps laid on 
to the tenoned tops, thus 
forming a box frame. A 
short post is then insert¬ 
ed into each end cap, 
or plate, two thirds as 
high as the building is wide, and again cut in each 
to receive the ridge pole, which may be a 3x4 
piece of scantling, on which the peak of the roof 
PIGEON-HOUSE-INSIDE. 
is laid. The roof has a third pitch, like our othei 
roofs, and spreads wide over all, to keep the house 
warm and dry. It may be made of rough boards, 
or shingles, as desirable. The sides are tightly 
boarded up, weather proof; a firm tight floor is 
laid, and a sizeable door, hung with butts, on the 
rear. Thus, then, the outside is finished. 
Then mark out, and cut with a gimlet saw, 
three or four tiers of holes, 4 by 3 inches—plenty 
large—as in the picture, with a lighting shelf 6 
inches wide just below each tier, both outside, 
and inside. This done, build a range of boxes 
around the front, under the holes, and on two 
sides, and in tiers one above the other a foot 
apart, from floor, to roof. These boxes 
should be 6 or 8 inches wide, 8 or 10 inches long, 
and the sides 4 to 6 inches high. In these the 
pigeons will lay, and hatch, all as one family, and 
increase to your heart’s content. 
The door on the rear is approached by a move- 
able step ladder, which never should be left there 
when not wanted, as rats, or other vermin might 
possibly reach the biVds, although, if built tightly, 
they would have but little chance. If the climate 
he cold, a lining of boards with 3 or 4 inches 
space between it and the outer boards filled in 
with tan bark, or saw dust, would not be amiss, 
as it would keep the room cooler in Summer, and 
warmer in Winter. 
--- Teg ^- a-T i -» » 
Elegant Leisure. 
The above may be a strange term to introduce 
into this paper, but our readers will understand its 
drift before we are done. In this generally pros¬ 
perous country of ours, we have a great many 
considerate men, who began life with frugal, in¬ 
dustrious habits,and ultimately accumulated hand¬ 
some estates, and who have had “ gumption ” 
enough, when arrived at an age when the cares 
of active business become irksome, to secure what 
they have gained, and retire to spend their re¬ 
maining days in the quietude congenial to their 
tastes, or inclinations. Many city dwellers, whose 
early associations were with the farm, or garden, 
or who were born and educated in the country 
and retained throughout their business career 
their early love for things rural, choose them a 
snug farm not far out of the town, or city of their 
business residence. They retire upon this, intend¬ 
ing, either by its cultivation, or in some congenial 
occupation to spend their time peacefully, and 
agreeably, as either domestic, or financial circum¬ 
stances may permit. To the good sense of this we 
most cordially subscribe. There can be nothing 
safer, happier, and more fraught with the re¬ 
sources of substantial enjoyment; and such a con¬ 
clusion we recommend to all who possess the 
taste and faculty of so accommodating themselves 
to a change so different from the bustle and tur¬ 
moil of active business, to a life of comparative 
ease, and physical inactivity. 
Yet, this latter mode of life need be no induce¬ 
ment to idleness. The active mind can always 
find a sufficient number of objects to give it con¬ 
tentment, and the hands enough to do to give 
health to the body. It is only in the misapplica¬ 
tion of one’s means and time in the retirement 
they have sought, which has proved the bane of 
many a one’s choice—that of devoting his time 
to “ Elegant Leisure.” 
These well intentioned, excellent, and some¬ 
what ambitious men, in society as well as busi¬ 
ness—who are not of the “ Sparrowgrasses,” 
either—have an idea that the habits of town leis¬ 
ure can be carried into country resdenee, and en¬ 
joyed with equal relish and convenience. They 
