I/P7/TV 
»- Wi ifm MTTi i m 
Price Five Cents, 
$2.00 Per Year. 
[Entered according to Act of Conyreaa. in the year 1880, by the Rural New-Yorker, in the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.] 
ishable, and conducive to the growth of fungi 
which will Boon cause the boarding to decay, 
so that the advantage from this measure amply 
repays the trifling cost. An air-space may 
also be left with advantage between the outer 
will the ice be preserved if properly packed in 
a suitable building. A structure of this kind 
can be built very '•heaply, if a man does a 
good share of the labor himself; or bearing in 
mind the essential requirements—non-con- 
A CONVENIENT BARN 
WESTERN FARMING - GENERAL OUT 
LOOK. 
In building a barn the first aim should be to 
make it suit the purpose for which it is needed, 
the second to make it ornamental to a degree 
corresponding with the surroundings, the taste 
of the owuer and his means. With these ends 
in view, the accompanying design was drawn. 
It was originally intended to erect a barn after 
this plan at the Rural Grounds, but " cir¬ 
cumstances alter cases," and for reasons 
quite independent of the model, we were 
finally led to adopt another plan which in 
some respects seemed to be more suitable. 
This design is, however, the result of careful 
study, and we present It here in the hope that 
it may be of service to some of our readers. It 
is not, of course, adapted to the requirements 
of a farm, but rather to that class of country 
places where the number of the larger domes¬ 
tic animals is limited to a carriage horse and 
one or two cows. It is drawn on a scale of 
one-eighth of an inch to the foot, except the 
plan of the loft, figure 59, which is reduced 
W. I. CHAMBERLAIN. 
The styles of farming vary greatly in differ¬ 
ent parts of the country, and the wide-awake 
farmer of one State or region can hardly travel 
through other sections without seeing much to 
instjuct, as well as interest and amuse. If he 
is a Western man and travels through portions 
of New England for the first time, the fields 
look exceedingly small and crooked, and he 
wonders where the farmers find room to turn 
around their machines and wagons. He is 
not at all surprised to find ox-carts in vogue, 
and wagon-racks for w5od and hay so made 
that the wagon can turn around, like a city 
truck, without moving one hind wheel, and he 
says, "Why of course! or else they’d have to 
drive out of the field to tarn around at all! ” 
He admits, for he must, that the valleys of 
Vermont and Connecticut are fertile and that 
the great hills furnish fine pasturage far up 
their slopes; but he says he doesn’t like the land 
set up edgewise “like you were going to culti¬ 
vate both sides.” 
oonr, 
Oroirt 
GROUND PLAN.—FIG. 58. 
wall and an outside weather-boarding. The 
eves of the roof should extend a good way be¬ 
yond the sides of the building. The gable end 
should be towards the north and is the best 
place for the door. For this purpose a com¬ 
mon door will do for the outside, but within, 
Instead of another door, a better arrangement 
would be a series of boards to fit horizontally 
between cleats id the door posts. A few anger- 
holes or a sliding shutter or similar device 
should provide ventilation from aloft at the 
north end. It is better and cleaner to pack 
the ice in ice than in sawdust, so that the house 
should be filled as closely as possible. Its size 
of course roust depend on the requirements 
of the builder, but the larger it is the longer 
ducting walls, drainage and ventilation from 
above—even a cheaper one may be constructed 
by any man with a fair average of gumption. 
The accompanying cut represents a sectional 
view of an ice house for keeping meat, fruit, 
or indeed anything that requires a low tem¬ 
perature for its preservation. A, is the storage 
room into which the cold heavy ah from the 
ice chamber, B, descends. As cold air is heav¬ 
ier than warm and consequently desends to 
replace it in a confined space, by having *he 
ice over the store-room the same advantage is 
secured that has led to a similar arrangement 
in our refrigerators. Bearing in mind the 
above conditions, the construction of the build¬ 
ing is readily seen from the engraving. 
BARN LOFT.— FIG. 59. 
somewhat. The arrangement of the stalls, 
etc., can be changed to suit the requirements 
of the case. The section drawing to the left 
of the elevation is intended to show the rela¬ 
tive bights of the two floors, and the position 
of the windows. Instead of the pigeon house 
on the roof, a weather vane can be erected, if 
desired. The plans may so readily be under¬ 
stood that no further description is needed. A 
barn of this description can be built for $400. 
-*-*-♦- 
ICE-HOUSES. 
The essential requisites for a good ice-house 
arenon-conducting walls and roof, drain¬ 
age and ventilation, and the chief object of 
a person building a house should be to secure 
these ends. The best and cheapest material 
for ordinary ice-houses is lumber, and of this 
probably the best is hemlock plank. The 
building may bo entirely above ground or 
partly underground. The sills should rest 
on a stone or brick foundation to secure as 
much dryness as possible, and this had better 
be laid in cement A tight or cemented floor 
should he laid slightly inclined, with a drain 
at the lowest end to carry off the water. On 
this rails should be laid and covered with 
straw to support the ice. The walls and roof 
should be double-boarded with a Bpace, be¬ 
tween the inner and outer walls, from four in¬ 
ches to two feet wide—the nearer it approaches 
the latter size, the better. This space should 
be filled with spent tan bark, planing-wi»l or 
carpenter’s shavings, or sawdust. By char¬ 
ring the sawdust it is rendered nearly inde¬ 
structible, while the uncharred article is per- 
BARN FOB A VILLA RESIDENCE.—FRONT ELEVATION.—FIG. 57. 
FIG. 60. 
When he passes through parts of Massachu¬ 
setts and New Hampshire and sees the small, 
angular fields, surrounded by stroug stone 
walls, every stone of which was picked or 
pried or blasted from tbe narrow iuclosure, he 
fairly groans with sympathetic back-ache as 
he thinks of the immense labor required to 
clear a single acre and render it not half so 
valuable for tillage as an acre of unbroken 
virgin prairie. And be says to himself "If 
the Lord had put Illinois on the sea-board and 
New Hampshire beyond the great lakes, the 
latter never would have been settled.” But 
when he sees the sagacity and thrift of the 
fanners and notices how they have, by a wise 
husbanding of all Nature's fertilizers, changed 
rugged and almost barren wastes into fertile 
fields, he feels that he has learned a lesson. 
And when he talks with the farmers and finds 
them intelligent aud moral, as well as snug 
and tidy in peraou, farm and buildings, fore¬ 
handed as well as shrewd, and remembers 
that Boston and Hartford loaned much of the 
money to bnlld aud rebuild Chicago, he admits 
that New England at least makes men, and 
that if Providence had put Illinois where he was 
just proposing, the Puritans would never have 
been Ihe rugged sires of so many stalwart 
generations. 
On the<ither hand, the New England farmer 
returns from his first trip to the Great West 
with enlarged views. That is the place where 
things are done in the large. The vast fields of 
grain,herds of swine and " ounches ” of cattle, 
the many complicated labor-saving farm ma¬ 
chines and the profuseness with which Nature 
fairly tosses her rich gifts into the lap of the 
L 
