1877 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
4,25 
The ladder rests at the bottom against a small foot- 
stage. At figure 2 the house is shown in section, 
Wdth 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 
fast each time, until the boat is high enough. 
An Ics-houss in the 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 
in a corner 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 
Fig.l. PEAN OF ICE-HOUSE. Sb ° Uld be j U8t beneath 
a beam of the upper 
floor. Some rough boards are tacked to the 
posts of the barn wall, up to uear the top. A 
batten is then nailed to the floor, one inch from 
the board ; this makes the foundation of which 
the ground plan is as shown at figure 1. If neces¬ 
sary, a board is nailed up to the beams above, 
for the purpose soon to be described. The spaces, 
a, 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. The 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 the beams before men¬ 
tioned. These boards are thus kept in their place. 
When all the ice is in, it is well covered on the top, 
a space for a door being left in the boarding above 
the ice. Then a second row of boards 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 hight of the ice within. There is no need 
to close the door space ; it will be better to leave 
that open for ventilation. Figure 2 shows the out- 
Fig. 2.— VIEW OF ICE-HOUSE IN BARN. 
side of this ice-room as it appears from the bam 
floor. Such a place as this may be easily arranged 
in many barns ; our neighbor thus kept an ample 
supply of ice every season without losing by waste 
more than is usual in the 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 the 
manufacture of thread spools, 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 mountain lands, or 6andy valleys, 
will produce this timber. It is stated that the busi¬ 
ness of exporting white birch timber from an East¬ 
ern 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 New 
England a bulky raw 
] material like this, in¬ 
stead of the finished ar¬ 
ticle, upon which the 
. difference in freight on¬ 
ly would give a good 
margin for profit. There 
are 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 flow rapid 6tream6 that would 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 industries, and we may supply the world 
not only with thread spools, but with bobbins 
for spinning frames, and other kinds as well. 
Plan of a Dairy Barn. 
A cow barn that can be easily extended as the 
herd may be enlarged, will be found very convenient 
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Fig. 1.— FEAN OF DAIRY BARN. 
by many. The size of a herd i6 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 barns to build 
larger, but when it is possible to add to them at 
either end, increased room can be 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 6team, 
and all sorts of machinery, there is no difficulty in 
using long narrow buildings, for, with the hay-fork 
and the hay-carrier, the forage can easily be stored 
in the longest bam and dropped wherever it is de¬ 
sired, without trouble, and by using a tram-road 
and light feed-cars, 300 cow6 can be fed from a 
central feed-room as easy as 30 can be fed in the 
old-fashioned manner. Figure 1 is the plan of a 
cow bam that will be found as convenient for a 
small herd of 20 or 30 cows, as for one of ten times 
that number. The building may be 24 or 42 feet 
wide. The plan 6hown is 42 feet in width, and ac¬ 
commodates two double rows of cows. If room 
for only one double row is desired, 24 feet will be 
amply wide. In the plan, there is a central passage 
for feeding, 6 feet wide, with a tram 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 each row, and 
for a four foot wide feed-trough, divided length¬ 
wise into two, each part being two feet wide, by a 
sufficiently high partition. The feed is easily 
thrown into these troughs from the central passage, 
along which the feed-car can be drawn by a small 
horse, or be pushed by a man. A turn-table is pro¬ 
vided in the ceuter of the passage, to admit of a 
car being brought from the wash-house in the rear 
with empty milk-cans, or to the milk-house with i 
the full ones after milking. The door-ways are 
made very capacious, and the doors are double ; I 
the door-ways may be left open during the summer, | 
the doors being fastened back against the wall. 
The upper floor is kept for hay, fodder, and feed ; 
these being 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 
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 6hown 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 2 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 be ample ventilation provided by means of 
shafts, as 6hown, and these can also be utilized for 
dropping hay to the floor beneath. The plan 
here given will admit of much modification ; it is 
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 ; but 
this will be found sufficiently suggestive and clear, 
j 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-House. 
The rapidly extending use of the cold system of 
setting milk, heretofore described, will create a 
necessity for convenient and compact dairy rooms, 
with well and ice-chamber for use in the summer 
Fig. 2.— VIEW OF DAIRY BARS. 
