48 
AMERTOATs AaEIOULTUEIST. 
[Febkuary, 
A Remodelled Barn. 
2d rulZE.—ET JOHN MOltRISON, JU., OBAK. ONTARIO. 
The average farm baru foiiiul in very many sec¬ 
tions of the country is fairly represented in the 
elevation, figure 1, and the floor plan. Around this 
structure there generally gathers, as time goes on, 
necessity dictates, and circumstances allow, a se¬ 
ries of other out-buildings without any pre-arranged 
plan. The owner is forced to admit that many 
inconveniences are caused through lack of fore¬ 
thought and definite plan; he has wasted more time, 
which means money, than would have erected all 
I'ig. 1.— SIDE VIEW OF A COMMON BAEN. 
the buildings he possesses, two or three times over. 
1 submit herewith a plan for using the original 
barn as a starting point, and constructing a build¬ 
ing neat and tasteful in design, convenient of ac¬ 
cess to every part, and containing (fig. 3) suflicient 
room to accommodate twenty full grown cattle, 
three horses, from thirty to forty sheep, according 
to age and size, a carriage-room with space for a 
double carriage and single buggy or cutter, and a 
commodious harness-room in the corner of which 
is an oat box four feet square. This last is accessible 
‘by a sliding door starting from the passage way and 
is adjacent to the mangers, thus saving extra steps. 
All the animals can be fed from the head by the 
continued passage way, which goes entirely around 
the building. The hay and feed can be dropped 
into the passage from the barn mow, and at thresh¬ 
ing time the rough straw can be stowed in the lofts 
over the stables, so as to be dropped through trap 
doors when needed for bedding. This remodelled 
plan includes also a root cellar for eight hundred 
bushels, connecting direct with the passage way of 
the cattle stalls. Where roots are not raised, but 
«corn alone is fed, the cost of this cellar (about one 
hundred and fifty dollars') can be saved and de¬ 
ducted from the estimate. Figure 3 gives the 
ground plan, and figure 4 shows the side eleva¬ 
tion, representing the remodelled barn with in¬ 
ternal arrangements which are described as follows : 
This model can be worked on to any barn of the 
form shown in figure 1, no matter what the dimen¬ 
sions. A difference in size will be all the alteration 
required from the plan here shown. The most of 
the.se old barns are set on blocks about two feet 
above the ground ; the new portion I have elevated 
only six inches as it is warmer and gives more 
room. The ceilings should be seven feet high by 
the plan, and no sill should be placed across the 
space opposite the barn floor, in order to leave 
room to drive out through from the barn.—In the 
estimate I have given the market prices of lumber 
here. In this section the owners take out all the 
scantling and rough lumber themselves, and this 
reduces the cost about fifty dollars. This, with the 
cost of the cellar, if omitted, makes two hundred 
dollars, leaving the expenses of remodelling the 
barn as given below about live hundred dollars. 
If all the room I have arranged for is not required 
on the farm now, a part only need be erected at 
first, and the plan be worked upon until the whole 
is completed. This 1 consider is one of the best 
features of the remodelled plan herewith given, 
materials and Cost. 
2,50 1 feet Bcantliug and lumber for Inside work ; 2,508 
feet of 11 feet siding; 153 feet for gables ; 2.661 
feet of 18 feet flooring; 1,075 feet of rafters, viz., 
28 of 21 feet long, 16 of 20 feet long, 87 of 19 feet 
long; 162 feet of rafters for cellar—a total of 
11,562 feet at $14 per 1,000 feet.$161.87 
3,250 feet of sheathing @ $10 per 1,000 feet. 32.50 
2,736 feet of lofting @ $10 per 1,000 feet. 27.36 
IS windows, 2 by 3 ft., @ 80c.; 2 of 2by 2 ft., @ 60c.. 11.60 
1 window, 3 by 3 ft.,$1.25; 500 scantling for braces, 
$7. 8.25 
27.500 shingles, @ ^.50 ; 18,000 bricks, @ $4.169.25 
Hinges, nails and battens, about. 50.00 
Cellar: mason work and lime, $60; carpenter, $200... 260.00 
Total cost.$7‘20.83 
Bairying in California. 
BV It. E. BAMPORD. 
While Eastern dairymen are supplied by nature 
with green grass all summer, in California the 
grasses dry and the hills look brown by the middle 
of June. The general practice of 
dairymen in the Sacramento and San 
Joaquin Valleys is to leave their 
families about May 1, and take all 
their cows, calves, pigs and poultry, 
to the higher regions of the Sierra 
Nevada, six to seven thousand feet 
above the sea, where, the snow hav¬ 
ing melted, green feed can be found 
until September. Some dairymen, 
however, keep their cows in the 
Sacramento Valley and feed during 
the dry summer, in the table lands 
skirting the river, placing their but¬ 
ter and cheese on the river steamers 
for the San Francisco markets.—One 
favorite spot for the migrating dairy¬ 
men is the country around Lake 
Tahoe. The little valleys about the 
lake are dotted in summer with their 
cabins.—Here may be found the 
latest inventions for butter-making, 
such as patent churns, setting pans, 
and a variety of dairy appliances. By 
this change of location, green pasturage is length¬ 
ened to nine months instead of five in the valleys. 
The mountain dairy products are often sent over 
the line into Nevada, which draws largely upon 
California for such supplies. Although these 
mountain ranges are sometimes cropped very 
closely, the next year the grass is as thick as ever, 
and dairymen say the pastures are just as good as 
when the country was first settled. The cows 
eating these natural grasses average one hundred 
and fifty to two hundred pounds of butter yearly. 
The capital now invested in dairying in California 
is fifteen million dollars, and the annual products 
about nine millions, giving employ¬ 
ment to some six thousand men.— 
This industry began about 1849, 
when the gold fever was at its bight. 
Some men observing how difficult it 
was for miners to obtain supplies, 
and how much they would gladly 
pay for milk or butter to add to their 
rough fare, established dairies and 
immediately found themselves in a 
paying business, more profitable to 
many than working in the mines, 
as cows then cost only five dol¬ 
lars apiece and land vvas cheap. 
It is customary in this State for dairymen to rent 
the cows with the Land, about eight acres with 
each cow. The 3 'carly rent per cow varies from 
twenty dollars in hilly portions to thirty-two dollars 
on more productive soil. The tenant pays his rent 
with a certain number of calves and some hay, the 
proprietors supplying the necessary buildings.— 
About seven thousand tons of batter and fifteen 
hundred tons of cheese are made yearly in this 
State. [See census figures on page 56.J The 
largest butter dairy in California is in Humboldt 
county, comprising over thirteen thousand acres, 
and over two thousand one hundred cows. Del 
Norte, the most northern coast county, also ships 
largo quantities of very good butter to San Fran¬ 
cisco — sometimes a hundred tons of butter a year. 
The price varies in Sun Francisco from twenty-five 
cents per pound in April to forty cents in October, 
this difference of course depending very much 
on the condition of the indigenous grasses. 
Those counties nearest to the Pacific are naturally 
best suited to daiiying, as the constant fogs take 
the place of rain and keep the grass green from 
February to September, a much longer period than 
in other parts of the State. The lower summer 
temperature also favors daiiying in these counties, 
such as Marin, San Mateo, Humboldt and Del 
Norte. San Mateo county is the chief source of 
milk for San Francisco, and day by day, on the 
country road, may be seen a long string of wagons 
bound cityward. This county has the largest milk 
ranch in California, at San Bruno, fourteen miles 
south of San Francisco. Its two thousand seven 
hundred acres occupy the entire width of the pen¬ 
insula from the ocean to the bay. Here five hun¬ 
dred to six hundred cows are milked twice every 
Fig. 3.— GROUND PLAN OF REMODELLED BARN. 
day, and the milk put in three gallon cans. Two 
hundred of these are packed into a huge thorough- 
braced ivagon, and, at noon or at midnight, six 
mules start with the load, and reach the city in two 
and a half hours. This dairy supplies about four 
hundred thousand gallons of milk yearly, most of 
it being sold in San Francisco. Such large dairies 
cannot depend on the natural grasses, and two 
thousand acres of this ranch are devoted to rye 
and orchard grass. Many raise Alfalfa, or Chilian 
clover, (liicern) for their cows. The AlJUerilla and 
bur-clover are indigenous plants, which are most 
useful to dairymen. In some exceptional south¬ 
Fig. 4. —SIDE ELEVATION OF NEW BAEN. 
ern sections of the State the wild oats occupy 
large areas, and the cultivated kinds are also grown. 
In San Francisco, as well as in eastern cities, cows 
in the suburbs are fed on exhausted malt from the 
breweries. 'While this increases the flow of milk, 
its unwholesomeness is seen in the short lives of 
the animals, which in a very few years become un¬ 
fit for milking and are sold to the butchers. 
The cheese counties of California are San Luis 
Obispo, Monterey, Lake, Mendocino, and Sonoma, 
(the first named being the largest cheese pro- 
